protesters in france maintain pressure on the government ahead of the senate but on proposed pension reforms. prosecutors look into claims of child abuse and one of russia's oldest convents. and the new demands an extra nine hundred million pounds contributions from the u.k. as people take to the streets and anger over the largest public sector spending cuts in decades of. news from russia and around the world this is aussie with me thanks for joining us tear gas and water cannon that have been used against around paging 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 also has cattery knows our ways and powers. yana 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 and 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 nicolas sarkozy the french president is attempting to push forward in order to try and help the french economy get off its me 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 group playing 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 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 most tired of is the protest according to popular p. 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 see

no the numbers don't always reflect reality in france there isn't like 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 older ages as well give a signal of the commitment of the government to. take the reforms that will raise the potential of the economy as well. as 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 protestant in something they don't believe

in and don't agree but on the other hand as with anything if you do it too much it becomes a farce and democracy becomes a blackmailed institution in the hands of the people casualties are of art harris. a russian convent is under investigation of the claims of child abuse within its walls teenagers say they were severely beaten deprived of food and sleep for the slightest fault the convent in the region as one of the oldest institutions of its kind of a country dating back to the twelfth century it had already faced abuse allegations a year ago but no evidence was found to prove the claims back down. got some firsthand accounts of the case. the walls of this convent are supposed to provide sanctuary to teenagers inside his personal place to turn them into model citizens but sound young people at the boarding school can say it has turned into more the prison for them and experience it will take the months to recover from three

teenagers went public with their allegations of horrific mistreatment at the convent boarding school beauty which in just may 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 who 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 when is the real life in the convent is in fact very tough religious obedience sometimes demands physical attacks and 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 of terror and in case of a child with a parent's approval. but not all parents whose children are the common boarding school are ready to cope with the reality of their children choosing god over family if you really are. in february words. having 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 as of early. 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 mr. cheyne co were being confined by police and thus we have decided not to open a criminal case due to the absence of criminal act workers who were going to the ordeal but now some of those who defended the convent and its rules a year ago say they regret not telling the truth back then and even goes central russia. while stories this hour including. a new man at the solver's mosque a lawmaker's birds in the new beds delegate to the un told me alice that it's just

the people coming. out of the saudis go on a shopping spree that could prove to be the biggest on the table in u.s. history. in the face of wide ranging public sector spending cuts across the continent the european union has voted to increase its spending the move will cause the u.k. alone an additional nine hundred million pounds that is sharbat comes as the country announced its largest public spending tax in the second world war thousands of protesters took to streets of london saying it will condemn the u.k. t.v. years of brutal and implement and robert oulds director of think tank the bridge group says the system is to come out to give them money. but the timing is astounding really as we are making these cuts in britain to pay off the enormous debt that we've been left having to give more money to the us is money that the

british taxpayer the british government cannot afford to give it shouldn't be giving this money to the european union contributions or sets of wires the e.u. accounts haven't been signed off in over fifteen years because so much for waste and mismanagement within the european union we just shouldn't be giving this money at all while the european union has gone too far in union laws take supremacies over british law over the laws of every member state within the european union and we've worked out that it causes a lot of damage economically we're overburdened with regulation as well as handing too much money to brussels really british law in britain should be solved in our own laws our own politicians but westminster should have precedence over those in brussels that's what we want to see we want to see a europe of nation states that can work and cooperate together but not be governed by the institutions of the european union based in brussels which no one has ever elected force legislation on the citizens of the u.

you that has to rub it all the direction i think tank the british group. russia and the u.s.s.r. to join forces to talk all the of gun drugs problem the head of russia's federal drug control service because they've been known has agreed on a national plan with his american colleagues oh she's going to chicken is following developments from washington there's definitely an understanding that drug trafficking from of ghana's then is a common enemy wash in the us seem to be more than eager to join forces to fight it and they are doing so brought control chiefs of both countries so that russian the us now share a lot of sensitive information in order to crack down on drug trafficking networks in afghanistan and also track down their assets let's not forget the drug business in afghanistan is worth around seventy billion dollars a year if that money goal somewhere some of its sponsors terrorist experts say and if that evolved they had a force as drug control service was also talking about this well known connection between harry and terror now the us and russia perfectly realize the problem but

they for on the solution russia suggest eradicating all poppy fields and labs where heroin is produced the us says it's up to the afghan government to make that decision or just argument is the afghan government can stand up against multi multi billionaire drug monster stronger nations have to put an end to it and russia made that point many times to nato which it actually cooperate with on drug trafficking but to no avail. do this congress evaluated the taliban's drug production to be worth one hundred fifty million dollars. the drug production is estimated at sixty five million dollars so we can see that the taliban sectors only zero point two percent obviously it's not the main producers who are international forces say that they will limit the only drug production related to the taliban in other words only one hundred fifty thousand person now will be directed to eliminated just two

percent of jet production the remaining ninety nine point eight percent is love. to be destroyed by afghan forces the official argument of nato and one of its key members the united states for not eradicating the poppy fields is that they don't want to destroy the only source of income for local populations russia says that argument doesn't work and his victory of almost said the only ones who benefit from it are the landlords or the drug lords and definitely not afghan peasants and afghan peasant household makes seventy dollars a year for growing poppies and this mystery of an offset international forces should be after the landlords in afghanistan because they leave passons with no choice but growing poppies and in the last nine years of war in afghanistan that policy brought nothing but deaths afghan drugs killed more than a million people worldwide. has been sworn in with a no gration ceremony this is lawmakers voted to approve the appointment of sergei

sabean an accountant chosen by the president that if the council's new man in charge has been described as a skillful manager who can talk all the tough issues most faces. moscow does now have its new mayor tearing out inauguration ceremony earlier today attended by president medvedev it so they gave john 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 in him being vote today as he laid out his road about he says he wants to establish a fund just pulls out the city's roads the traffic will use it he wants to tackle corruption head on the securely and the housing sector found say he walks to preserve the city's cultural and historical architecture but these are just words of this poll watchers here in the city remain skeptical so they gave john it is a relative all know to 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 a very successful governor of the siberian two men who each with him and two big things are on the agenda very short of a fast bowler he's got to tackle the twenty eleven secedes budgets second leave what's widely 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 lives of most people like the look of the city drastically cheering the early ninety's followed during the last stages all of his term allegations of corruption the jokes he made every which turned up from points of complicated a carrot to a public peace son spied president medvedev last month when he was told that he no

longer house the confidence of the president a very harsh condemnation that baseball good english calls did no such tend to days inauguration ceremonies but he did tell his supporters not to take to the streets all created is not a disruption and he also received an official statement saying that he wished the new man the very best of luck for the remainder of his time. that results he's on his habits reporting from moscow. the u.s. senate has to consider a sixty billion dollars arms deal with saudi arabia and if it goes ahead it will be one of the largest arms sales in u.s. history congress also has a month to raise any objections the saudis want he a new fifteen fighter planes nearly two hundred at blackhawk helicopters as well as our grades for its existing aircraft the sale would also include a satellite guided smart bomb system and defense missiles stephen scenes professor of politics and international studies at begin investing in san francisco says countries should be cutting arms in the region not adding. it's really hard

to. for strategic reasons to imagine why they would need that much of that kind of equipment not to mention the fact that the middle east seems to have far too many arms already we should be talking about arms control not escalating the arms race still further basically this is not about the fence this is about pax americana but the real losers are not just going to be those who these weapons may be used against which in the middle east and to be civilians a lot more than military for every dollar the saudis have to spend on these kind of weapons they have less money to provide food aid and other assistance to poor arab countries like egypt morocco but they have a lot of oil money and there are a lot of political number of politically influential defense contractors the united states that would like that money that was stephen scenes professor of politics and international studies at the university of san francisco. now some more world news

coming for you know at least one hundred thirty five people have died and hundreds are seriously ill from a suspected cholera outbreak in rural haiti people suffering from diarrhea vomiting fever and hospitals doctors are now waiting for test results to confirm that an outbreak many people are still living in unsanitary conditions after january's devastating earthquake was felt so three hundred thousand people. police in mexico have arrested a drug drug gang accused of being behind a car bombing in sudan to glamorize in june that killed three people began z. leader and fourteen other members were seize along with weapons and drugs over two thousand people have been killed in the city this year making it one of the most dangerous in the world. international aid worth five million dollars have been delivered to the girls' stream following months of israel's blockade around three hundred activists went through egypt's border crossing after it was closed

following a deadly israeli raid in may members of the turkish flotilla were killed delivering supplies to gaza however after having to national pressure the blockade was eased. toyota the world's largest automaker has announced the recall of one point five million cars most of the vehicles are being brought in over break and fuel pump problems accidents have been reported connected to the defrag last year the company recalled more than eleven million vehicles over safety concerns. that was just so much for weeks now since police in ecuador protests against salary cuts sparking what some later called a coup attempt the country's president was said to have been trapped in a hospital for twelve hours before being freed thanks to a military operation the violent drama left five people dead so the details are still unclear and to find out more r.t. speaks to present ruffo career himself interest amount.

yes. thank you for receiving us here at this time in your home. as you know there are different theories of what happened on september the thirtieth both on the national and international level what arguments do you use when saying that it was an attempt to offer could attack. there's no doubt it was an attempted coup i was support my position with arguments a bit later in our country the opposition can say whatever they like is believe here that being in opposition means denying obvious things they're even ready to argue that a circle has right angles and if i died that day they would have said that i committed suicide anyway day by day we get more and more evidence that this was an attempt to destabilize the situation the thing is that classic couetise at least in latin america with troops overturn of a president and appointment of

a new military dictator as president are impossible the twenty first century there are new ways to destruct the work of a government presumably a certain part of society in this case armed people national police expressed their discontent with the new law they haven't even read to the end the law is a good one all this has happened because of misleading information this discontent serve as a basis for intrusion of political groups of corrupted groups from the police itself of people violating human rights and resorting to torture thus these groups are taking advantage of a general discontent not to have their salaries raised but to insult the president to hold him hostage to threaten him and to finally make an assassination attempt that's clear from video recordings that they were not acting on their own their actions were coordinated by political groups that's where i'd like to stress those groups stayed in the shadow waiting for the outcome of this attempted coup d'etat but the intent failed there were a number of coordinated operations and the evidence shows that these actions have been prepared over three weeks in order to create turmoil which was supposed to

last no more than one two or three days. it was joined by the armed forces looting broke out as well as skirmishes and bloodshed as a result the government would simply have to stand down but they could not foresee that i would get back to quito headquarters and when they treat me in such an insulting manner when they keep me hostage all this unites the country and the police itself to see that what's going on is far from demands to raise salaries that's when the coup d'etat fail safe and you are going to address that morning you challenge those who want to kill the president ask him if they have brain enough to do so what are the threats like and the moment i asked a question to the police the president is sticking his neck out what are they talking about according to the current theory it was discontent expressed due to a misunderstanding of a good new law concerning the military and the police i was going to explain the essence of law my way but once we arrived we were met with tear gas and with slogans get out proven his way the communists they blocked the presidential building and pin the tires therefore it was evident from the very beginning that it

was a political trap and there was no wish to carry out a dialogue we heard no demands to raise salaries it was a political scenario long lives. this is the country's former president who is behind all this that's why i opened the window and tried to explain the situation because they continued interrupting and insulting me as we knew about the looting and we realized it was a political travesty i said if you want to kill me which kill me but don't destroy our homeland they didn't have the guts to do so later on in the coup failed they did try to kill the president which can be seen from the recordings and was confirmed by numerous pieces of evidence the room i stayed in was attacked by gunfire as well as the presidential car anyone can take a look at those shots there was an order to kill the president but at that moment because cowards do not have the guts to kill me. i want to make some doctors in the hospital way were treated contradict the information about who had been kidnapped can you comment on that please. you can hear any kind of nonsense in

a democratic society but lately it. prove that the doctors claiming that we were not even in the hospital at the time he said that due to a number of weird canes that and says there is an investigation of the opposition members actions before the thirtieth of september what kinds of answers did you mean and what are the preliminary results. for example in the morning of the twenty third of september the recordings proving it for della rail a deputy of lucy who tears who's behind all this was not alone the main initiator is the social democratic party its members are detained for the time of the investigation was manuka strike in quito also a few days before the clashes on the thirtieth of september seven opposition members of the national assembly made a trip to the united states where in washington they met with the ultra right who as we know financed the opposition groups activity we do not have proof that they financed the events of september thirtieth but we can prove that they financed the opposition's activity what problems and internal weaknesses in your opinion have

been shown since the events we're talking about. it's absolutely clear that even before these events there were mistakes of the intelligence agency and the government and it's understandable because when we came into government our intelligence as well as police in the military were financed by the u.s. embassy since the first of march of two thousand and eight when colombia started bombing ecuador all those disadvantages of the intelligence service were revealed and many intelligence departments knew that and they were in contact with the colombian groups but instead of reporting to the government they acknowledged the u.s. embassy so we were to disarm those groups and start controlling the intelligence agency who were to finance it appoint the heads of departments and work out a new law on the state intelligence service but it was adopted only in two thousand and nine that's why from two thousand and nine we have been reforming the intelligence service system but all those structures have been decaying and still there are people who managed to get in there but it's very difficult to reform the

system of intelligence so we're still. working on it it's clear how those problems appeared but it's a big problem and we have to pay a lot of attention to that when you talk about these extreme right wing groups that support opposition on the international arena and try to obstruct the changes that are happening which groups are you talking about exactly. i won't mention any names we know who they are but i don't want to obstruct the investigation what i will say however is that these new tactics of the north american harks the extreme right wing groups mainly in the u.s. but also in latin america europe etc as they don't have a central government what i will say however is that these new tactics of the north american harks the extreme right wing groups mean in the us but also in latin america europe etc as they don't have a central government these new tactics are indirect they don't try to achieve a direct effect by the foreign policy of a state but instead use think tanks for conspiracy purposes how do they do that they find.