face to face with the news makers.

it would be so much brighter if you found someone from fines to impression its. stance on t.v. dot com. and angry backlash against rodgers and from the country is gripped by protests and violence over pension reform critics say they're only making the situation worse. if you which just may be just often sometimes three times a day or two lashes each time. to run one of russia's oldest convent deny allegations of child cruelty as prosecutors hear accusations of severe physical abuse from teenage boards. also reporting this are not to cause extern filmmaker

hopes to have the last laugh as he strikes back against the hollywood comedy borrett that mocked his country. around the clock around the world this is r.t. here in moscow tear gas and water cannon have been used against rampaging protesters in france french authorities have resorted to extreme measures to battle violence sparked by students and trade unions while the senate debates a controversial pension reform bill. is in paris force. yanga loud and proud to try and speak for their own country these people might look like they're attending a student party as they're all students this definitely feels like a party but in fact it's anything but it's yet another day of protests in the heart

of the french capital paris these people are nowhere near retirement age yet this is exactly what they're protesting the proposed pension reform that you but i start to see the french president is attempting to push forward in order to try and help the french economy get off its means these people do not want and added two years to their service and they are prepared to take to the streets and disrupt the life of the country for as long as it's necessary in order to get the job done we're going to try and get over to the french senate where hearings about the pension reform are taking place and see what the people there have to say about the whole thing. only the heavy police presence outside the french senate rebinds passers by the protests that are grappling the country took place here just a few days ago the police of course are standing guard over what is happening in the senate when the real work on the pension reform is currently under place the decision could come as early as today and as late as sunday but the government has

already said that they will not back down to public pressure the government and the french president nicolas sarkozy is saying that is not likely how the economy will recover from the current protests however is yet another question economists have not yet had a chance to count what damage has been done by the strikes and protests that have grappled the country for days but just to compare in two thousand and seven a nine day transport strike cost the country four hundred million euros and that is of course a huge amount of money and it is possible that the current strikes may end up costing the country the same amount or even more something that in the current financial climate it definitely cannot afford but there are a surprising number of people who actually say that what they're my. tired of is the protest according to popular opinion polls nearly forty percent of the country's people say that they're really tired of people protesting of all the violence and chaos that is governing their french cities and specifically in paris

young and old people alike are saying that this is really destructive to their of regular day to day lives. the young smart and ambitious lucy is slipping her time between a master's degree and working for a large international company for her the recent protests in paris are first and foremost a personal distraction i'm not driving because in paris you don't really need your car so i'm using the. headquarter of my company yeah it's it's longer according to trade union officials in france over three million people took to the streets across the country but people like you know the numbers don't always reflect reality in france there is a committee is just to avoid school like six years ago i made the same when i was in high school. i went through the strike because i can avoid.

the rowdy crowd certainly give off a celebratory vibe singing dancing and shouting but while they're spending day after day protesting a reform that is aim to aid their country their very actions are doing serious damage it's basically this is one of the reform to. restore the. system remove disincentive for working out order ages. of the commitment of the government to. take structural reforms that will raise the potential of the economy as well. top of the coins the numbers really speak for themselves france has a. huge foreign debt the fourth largest in the world and unlike in the united states there is no board advertising the numbers also unlike the united states where there is no annual paid leave the french enjoy the longest paid holidays

thirty days a year their retirement age which is what the people are protesting about this time is one of the lowest in the world so are these protests a true sign of a democracy or simply a force of habit we have to say to the french people that is they who chose the deputies and members of the senate who make the laws laws are not made in the streets and in a year and a half will have the opportunity to say that we made a mistake and change our leaders but until then these are the people who run the country the my way or the highway philosophy certainly attention grabbing but who will back down first is still anyone's guess on the one hand it is a constitutional right of the people to project speaking something they don't believe in and don't agree but on the other hand as well they think if you do it too much it becomes a farce and democracy becomes a blackmailed institution in the hands of the people catch or does our art harris. well more stories still to come your way this. including.

the solvers must go lawmakers vote see and then you get to be on it took me out of there but it's just a few moments from the. top designers have been presenting their collections of russian fashion week. into the dressing rooms to see all the new governments. their stories still to come but first a russian is under investigation over claims of child abuse within its walls just say there were severely beaten deprived of food and sleep for the slightest fault the convent in the region is one of the oldest institutions of its kind in the country dating back to the twelfth century it had already faced abuse allegations a year ago but no evidence. it's fun to prove the claims back then but is any integral sco got some first hand accounts of the case. the walls of this convent are supposed to provide sanctuary to the teenagers inside his personal place to

turn him into model citizens but signed young people at the boarding school can they just turn into more of a prison for their inexperience it will take the months to recover from three teenagers went public with their allegations of horrific mistreatment at the convent boarding school just they beat us often sometimes three times a day forty lashes each time once it was around one hundred and three lashes for one girl who cried every day our eyes were never dry and i was puffy we would always have headaches from crying so much and we had no one to complain to. father vitale is the head of another christian boarding school he was the one the teenagers turned to immediately after running away confiding in him their experiences. one girl was had with a garden tool and now has a spinal injury which she will have to live with for the rest of her life they would make kids eat a cup of sold or stand on a stool all night reading songs and they were not allowed to sleep or kneel down on

a tray with nails one girl was forced to put her hand in a hot oven. but some believe a traditionally harsh bringing has been customary in russia and the line between abuse and parenting or instructing is hard to distinguish between what is the real life in the convent is in fact very tough religious obedience sometimes demands physical attacks in actions that can easily be confused with abuse but that doesn't mean that the abuse is really there because a person only accept such a life full internally and in case of a child with a parent's approval. but not all parents whose children are the same at the convent boarding school are ready to cope. with the reality of their children choosing god over family if you were right here. in february we were driving our daughter back home from the convent we were pulled over by the traffic police who said we had abducted our own daughter we took her back to the monastery but. her

parents wanted her to get treatment for a serious medical condition but if she was twenty one they were legally any bill to take her with them this is not the first time that the convent has found itself in the midst of a controversy last year a teenage girl ran away from the boarding school going public with very similar claims ironically one of the teenagers who escaped this year testified in the school's favor back then. and list a geisha did not confirm that. school of chain co were being confined by police and those we have decided not to open a criminal case due to the absence of criminal act. but now some of those who defended the convent and its rules a year ago say they regret not telling the truth back then in goes carty central russia. what's new mayor has been sworn in with inauguration ceremony the city's

lawmakers voted to approve the appointment of an account of the chosen by president medvedev the capital's new man in charge is being described as a skillful manager you can tackle the tough issues moscow faces or to others habits as more. moscow does now have its new mayor tearing out inauguration ceremony earlier today attended by president made their lives so they gave the speech on it it was sworn in as the new mosque a is city mayor there earlier in the day we did have the opportunity to hear the million and lay out his objectives for his a term in office during the q. and a session with nor make his which resulted it being felt today he laid out his road back he says he wants to establish a fund to slow how the city's roads and traffic were used he wants to tackle corruption head on the to billion the housing sector found say he walks to preserve the city's cultural and historical architecture but these are all just words of

this the waters here in the city remain skeptical so the gaze of john it is a relative all noted the process through which he went through from selection nomination to election day it has been very speedy we know that he's widely regarded as an effective and competent about the job he's a trained lawyer and he was by all accounts for example governor of the siberian two men region and two big things are on the agenda very short of a fast bowler he's got to tackle the twenty eleven sixteenth's budget secondly what would be predicted to be one of the coldest winters on record is just around the corner here to this call to move moscow some say like a passel feast of some eighteen years was hugely popular at the beginning of his term he was widely credited with that really improving the life of most people like the look of the city drastically cheering the early ninety's bonds during the lock to stages all of his turn allegations of corruption that don't seem at every which

turn up from points of complicated character publicly son spy for the bed of last month when he was told that he no longer public confidence of the president a very harsh combination that baseball good english golf did no such and today's inauguration ceremony but he did tell his supporters not to take to the. three it's all pretend it's not a disruption and he also received an official statement saying that he wished the new mayor the very best of luck for the remainder of this time. i was reporting there the european union is demanding an additional nine hundred million pounds from the u.k. it comes with largest public spending cuts since the second world war were announced in the country thousands of protesters took to the streets of london saying it will condemn the u.k. to years of brutal unemployment while for more on this joined by martha and pearson who's a member of the european parliament and former chief accountant to the european commission thanks very much indeed for joining us now how come then the european union wants to increase its budget when most of its member countries are suffering

economically. while the simple answer i can give you is that they live in another words really because they don't realize what the people in the different member states are going to do and they just want to cover their ambitions they justify the increase in that they have acquired new competences because of the lisbon treaty. people who were not consulted at least in the u.k. about the ratification of the lisbon treaty and now they are poised to pay the price of this ratification of the new splintering but i noticed in the daily telegraph the british newspaper you've been quoted as saying that european taxpayers will rightly feel it is being mugged by the only elected representatives and of course you're one of those representatives in the european union but there are those are saying that this is really a necessary investment you need this money it's a tool to deal with the economic crisis so surely therefore the e.u.

parliament is actually being proactive in dealing with the problems. well i don't believe they sesay said that much of the money is going to finance the competences but there's a need a european external action service really and we don't need parliament to acquire more powers and competence is when it task not. a good job in performing the competence is that it had before on the other hand i can tell you because i was the chief accountant and because i am in the budget and budgetary control committees in the parliament that a lot of money that is requested at the beginning of the year it's really not spent and why is it not spent because a lot of the projects require co-financing and the governments don't have the money for they school financing so their request for more money is really absurd well let's take that further where in fact you as the chief accountant of the european

commission how do you take the allegations that the u.s. has been accused of waste and fraud and mismanagement. how would you answer those. accusations well. who has been accused of waste and mismanagement little earlier i had a representative from a group in london who obviously had very outspoken views about the european union was saying that so many people agree with them that definitely the e.u. is not being transparent and he was outspoken in saying it was definitely accused of fraud waste and mismanagement how would you face those allegations. well yes i mean you have to know i suppose you know that there could be european court of law that there is have not signed the accounts for the last fifteen years and we are about to have the report for last year at the end of this month and.

i can assure you that they will not sign the accounts once more so you know what's happening is that taxpayers' money is not being properly spent and therefore asking for an increase is really abusive it's interesting to hear what you have to say as a member of the european parliament where does that put your position because obviously many u.k. taxpayers not only are they suffering from the latest austerity measures but know having to perhaps pay for this extra demand from the european union something like nine hundred million pounds which will have to come from the british taxpayers pocket surely that's going to undermine your own role in the whole role of the e.u. from the point of view of the british taxpayer and they will lose faith in all of the european system. well listen we have voted the u.k. the fan the spark the. peace have voted against any increase i work very hard in the budget committee to block this increase but. this is this is the only thing that i can do i mean it's very difficult the most

powerful political parties in the european parliament take the lead and they want to increase the budget because they want to acquire more power and then it's a very tough job for this mall or parties to be able to block this initiative and you know their intention is to force more euro and to first more europe on the european people they need more money. very interesting to hear what you have to say more to interest in a member of the european parliament talking to us live from brussels we appreciate your time here on r.t. thank you very much thank. you well they say revenge is a dish best served cold and kazakhstan is hitting back for years on after the hollywood movie borat smokes the nation a directive from the central asian countries created what he thinks is the perfect repast as you go reports. i'm not. sure

i like this is how my dad say i haven't heard that that this right down of kosik they said that the owner at best. not be. hiding behind their freedom of speech and democracy westerners insult our nation demeter seem backward it's all lives now was shaking back four years after the top grossing years film about the hapless cats like t.v. reporter because it sounds premier comedy director has come up with their past the new film centers on an american keen to discover the real kazakstan after seeing the original movie last year with the us we have such cars and such technologies here in austin nothing like the american film. there he meets borat brother only briefly mentioned in such a baron cohen's film my brother in law and a very

a funny. dad a san together that to engage in various high jinks. in our film below gets married to a donkey. the payoff is that borat and below are not kazakhs but actually jews from romania. demanders of the movie made the whole world laugh at us will make the whole world for down. there being several previous responses to bora not least this video by a rap collective to threaten to make him eat lead this time the producers are hoping for an international release. and after marrying a donkey will it becomes pregnant with this child. either a nerve. well this autumn's moscow fashion week sees the unveiling of the most stylish trends for the twenty eleven spring summer season in a collection by more than fifty russian designers the glitzy festival could become

a real arms race for up and coming designers lottie's tests are similar presents the new project showcased on this year's trendy event. now we're here in the russian fashion week in moscow it is the last day of the twenty first season and each time this event is held it does put the russian capital in the international fashion spotlight and of course behind the glitz and glamour it's all about hard work so we went backstage and we checked on the models getting ready before every show there just scrambling at the last minute to get everything together to make sure that the show is as good as it looks for the audience so behind it in front of the camera of the a stage we are seeing a lot of action and we can see that the more and more people are trickling in and it's going to be a big party tonight now of course in fashion there always a season ahead so just as we're preparing to get our coats out for the worst of winter there showcasing the spring summer two thousand and eleven bill action and just by watching you would wish that you could jump

a season ahead as well now over the past few days they've had more than fifty designers showcasing their work coming from russia the neighboring countries france italy malaysia peru and many more now another feature of this fashion week is that they're celebrating the here of france in russia so there have been a lot of collaboration between the french russians and everyone who is here and another interesting feature is that this season the launch of the russian fashion museum so it is a feast for the eyes and for the fashion savvy this is the place to be but of course that's not our all there is to win just as everyone else is busy in between shows and models are getting ready designers are getting ready people like me can enjoy groups like these where i can just sit down relax and enjoy some pampering so i'm going to have a make over that's exactly what i'm going to do right now. well it is to assume that reporting the next is the business news was shown to stay with us here on three. for the. we've got. the biggest issues get voice face to face with the news makers.

in india jeez available in hotels. resort and spa. sunday a beach hotel the western resort. resort and spa the ritz carlton hotel grounds many articles of hotel seasons hotel the sultan hotel. hello welcome to the business program hey on r.t. with me shall they miss folly neurosurgical shareholders they voted against changing the board of directors an extraordinary general meeting in moscow that it was called in order to clarify a dispute between its two main shareholders into are also impossible for control of

the russian mining giant where they each owning twenty five percent all correspondent on a bushel has been following events from a meeting at the center of. failed here in his attempt to rebuild his control of russia's biggest miner in his favor but the vote was much closer than expected minority shareholders to hold the key to this whole dispute was swayed the last moments of the argument that royal billionaire shareholder of libya put on in the car and holds control of the mining giant is not fulfilling its potential the head of roussel who is also on the board of north nickel told us that they should be focusing on their morning operations and we believe that there are use every single program which have to be put in place and if you can bring the value of the company. to fifty or sixty billion in eighteen to twenty four months and and it's

simple i mean the war is no longer assets that are whole bunch of non-progressive sitting on the balance sheet. which the morning ties they have to be either sold to the market or they have to be spun to be an office as an indicator for g q three this is being seen as just the beginning of the conflicts i did they will continue the dialogue with interest there's talk of this now being taken to the courts talk of a point of no return said the two sides are not talking to each other they're going through the media through media press releases to communicate with each other and shareholders and the specter hanging over all of this is the government says he doesn't want to get involved but if the two sides the two major shareholders call reach agreement then the government may have to. time take a look at how the markets are doing now on us to reverse course in giving up their big gains nothing trading on thursday

a strengthening dollar and profit taking of help drank stalls along the levels they reached their day the dow jones is just harboring in the black this hour favoring your market's times a clutch of companies and now its financial results are not. here's the bridge to all moving inside the hotel more than one percent. here in russia the markets rallied to six month highs for the us has closing one of three percent it was on the back of gains and crude in their toes and also spare banchory t.v. and last night surged after government announced it will sell states as part of the five year privatization program. jumped more than five percent on the my sex. the russian ruble has fallen to its lowest level this year against the euro dollar currency basket but it's a covert reports the central bank officials doing seem concerned about the weakness as they focus their attention on controlling inflation. the government is increasingly perswaded the both can take care of itself it's inflation it needs to

worry about the central bank has widened the exchange corridor as a cautious step towards the free float of the current say when this happens a lot of the central bank to focus on setting policy to control prices this has the ultimate aim of making russia more in line with the developed economies which offer a stable monetary environment. if we want an investment economy inflation should be around five percent any measure that leads to decreasing inflation is a priority. there is no sounds of the panic about the current valuation of the ruble unlike in two thousand and eight when the government broke through a sizable chunk of its reserves to prop it up russia's central bank says the current fundamentals of the russian economy do not support a one way trend indeed officials believe there are a number of factors which will effect the value of the currency in the medium term .