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a million rejections over raising the retirement age the french protest on mass as the country struggles through yet more privileged strikes. and drugs officials from russia tried to work with the u.s. to wipe out afghan here when production bought says america's sole focus on taliban poppy fields is not enough. and accounting people to counter problems russia's nationwide senses reaches all around to get it up to a portrait of the country's population. you're watching r t coming to you live from the russian capital nine in the morning here welcome to the program well there is more protesting ahead for france as strikers committee yet more stoppages to vent their anger over plans to make them

work longer tear gas and water cannon have been used against demonstrators while president sarkozy tries to hurry the senate vote on raising the retirement age to sixty two parties got to do you know a lot of what is in paris for us. iyanla 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 people are starting to see the french president is attempting to push forward in order to try and help the french economy get off its knees 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 reminds passers by that 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 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 would 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 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 it but there are a surprising number of people who actually say that what they're. most tired of is the protests 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 this is really destructive to their regular day to day lives. all france's pension system is decades old which business consultant erich krauss says nowhere near matches today's real world it's vitally necessary if they don't do it the entire system is going to go bankrupt you cannot spend money you don't have if the system is not reformed people just aren't going

to get pensions when the system was developed people died in your fifty's in their sixty's. lunge everything has increased enormously in friends it's got one of the longest lived populations in the world people are dying in their eighty's they simply cannot afford to have a thirty year pension people live longer they're going to have to work longer this is the case throughout the world i don't see why it should be any different in france activists see the protests spreading beyond france's borders brian becker from the answer coalition told r.t. that struggling workers won't rest well they say failed to gnash years of rakin for boards. the bankers are making tens of billions of dollars every year in bonuses but they tell the workers you can't afford we can't afford to have you have decent pensions you have to you have to tighten your belt meanwhile the bankers are tightening their belts so that contradiction is going to lead to class polarization

and mass protests not only in europe but i believe in the united states repression leads to a greater radicalization which becomes broader that's how social movements start small minority movements and become massive movements and then later we look back at them in history and say oh that was inevitable that that movement would come before hand we hardly see it and i think that's what we're seeing in the united states or what we saw in france a few months ago the harbinger small things subterranean changes and finally an eruption of a mass movement. in the face of wide ranging public sector spending cuts across the continent the european union has voted to increase its spending now the move will cost the u.k. alone an additional one hundred million pounds that's about one point four billion dollars in additional burden comes as the country and now sits on the largest public spending cuts since the second world war while thousands of protesters took to the streets of london so broken down here is one that robert also director of the group says the system means it's unlikely any of the money will be returned

to. the top i mean is astounding really when 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 u.s. 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 are set to revise the e.u. accounts haven't been signed off in over fifteen years chris so much for waste and mismanagement within the european union we just shouldn't be giving this money until the european union has gone too far european 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 overburdened with regulation as well as handing too much money to brussels really british law in britain should be sovereign only laws their own politicians westminster should have precedent over those in brussels

that's what we want to see we want to see the use of nation states that can work and cooperate together not be governed by the institutions of the european union based in brussels which no one has ever elected can force legislation on the citizens of the year you. well you are really the r t and coming your way in a few minutes or oil and trouble finding out how the driving racket of fuel smuggling in northern iraq is a danger in the lives of thousands of ordinary people plus. your nationality russian we look at russia as the biggest q. and a session in over five years and follow census takers as far as the international space station. russia and the us totally agree that the afghan here when industry needs to be wiped out but what they can't see eye to eye on is how to do it now afghanistan is by far the world's

biggest opium producer but america only wants to focus on it taliban controlled poppy fields artie's good education and explains why russia says that's not enough there's definitely an understanding that drug trafficking from of ghana stand is a common enemy russia in the us seem to be more than eager to join forces to fight it and they are doing so drug control chiefs of both countries said 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 it sponsors terrorist experts say it's victory evolve he had a force as drug control service was also talking about this well known connection between herring and terror now the u.s. and russia perfectly realize the problem but they for on the solution russia suggest eradicating all poppy fields and labs were heroin is produced the u.s. says it's up to the afghan government to make that decision russia's argument is

the afghan government can stand up against a 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 u.s. congress evaluates the taliban's drug production to be worth one hundred fifty million dollars however it's not worth the whole of that again just production of this estimated sixty five billion dollars so we can see that the taliban sectors only zero point two percent obviously it's not the main producer whoever international forces say that they will eliminate only do drug production related to the taliban in other words all one hundred fifty thousand personnel will be directed to eliminating just zero point two percent of drug production the remaining ninety nine point nine percent is left to be destroyed by the 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 passon 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 peasants with no choice but growing poppies and in the last nine years of war in afghanistan that policy brought nothing but death afghan drugs killed more than a million people worldwide. now america plans to sell some sixty billion dollars worth of weapons to saudi arabia in what's seen as one of the largest arms deals in u.s. history now congress is yet to approve the deal put forward by the obama administration the saudis want new fighter jets attack helicopters as well as upgrades for its

existing aircraft the sale would also include a wide range of bombs and missiles saudi arabia is one of the united states biggest oil suppliers and washington hopes the deal will improve the defenses of the gulf state but liberty campaigner david key says saudi arabia is a likely partner for a country that claims to defend human rights. in a classic dictatorial fashion the saudi regime does not rely on the consent of its people to be governed and therefore needed all the arms that it can acquire simply to maintain its presence in the region and there has been unfortunately a lack of concern for human rights in saudi arabia there are elements within the u.s. government that believe that the leadership is moderate and therefore it is an ally of the united states i believe that the saudi regime is in fact quite extremist in its beliefs and in its policies saudi arabia is a country which. prevents women from leaving the their home country without being

accompanied by a male model or guardian it is a country which bans the walking of pet cats and dogs in public there's gender apartheid it bans women from driving and i think a lot more can be done to increase american concern and pressure for improvements in saudi human rights while iran's nuclear push grabs the headlines its political courting of the wider middle east is largely slipping under the radar and later today on. grapple with that and whether the did it just popularity in some quarters matches his mandate. one house except reality in that in iran you have elections mr ahmadinejad for various reasons or is very popular just a couple of days ago when he went to this city. and you know he stole the election that's why they were.

running and i'm from the go right ahead yeah. ok you let the tides wash over for a second look at each truth that most of the arab world is the chariot saudi arabia jordan egypt because we in the west support them we want them to be totalitarian we want them to clearly quote unquote their own people to be on their side. and that's why we hope i was enraged and i'm just going to be. continuing my maze if i made your continual between. these gentlemen let robert finish a moment. they say that all and water don't mix but in northern iraq the greed of gangs and smugglers is bringing the two together with painful results for local people as a bass in my reports their health and livelihoods are under threat. one hundred

miles northeast of baghdad a special recchi police unit makes its way to the iranian border they're hunting a new breed of smuggler who trade not in guns but in gasoline this cash of compass get it jerry cans contains thousands of gallons of gasoline that was illegally trafficked from iran a few days ago smugglers for the disc cans down the sewer one river with they were intercepted by the iraqi police but many of the jerrycans didn't make the journey intact punctured by rocks or shot at by the iranian police tens of thousands leaked their contents into the sea of one river poisoning the water supply used by the thirty five thousand residents of the city of god and. so on. you know these are the cans developed over years ago people from durbin could use this war to with now because of the smell taste and color is to do it see in people count to use it and . put the money is too tempting for the local smugglers who can run ten thousand

jerry cans on an average night for a few hours of work they can make up to six thousand dollars what the smugglers wind their pockets downstream fishermen like you bring him in my head and watching their livelihood disappear two years ago we could catch a lot more fish. kids twenty kilos a day now it's only five hundred a second here in the city families unable to afford their own well have to drink to fell smelling water delivered to them by municipal trucks on the outskirts of town he was forced to feed his family this water those who are true is not safe to drink but because we can't afford clean water we have no choice but one of my children get sick listen i was going in so i had to take her to hospital when we drink the water and we get sick according to the recommendations of the american environmental protection agency pollution levels in the water supply are over fifteen times higher than the safe amount. you know of any one hospital no means daughter is suffering from diarrhea which she contracted after having

a bath in the city's tap water. i haven't been hospitalized myself but because of my child i come often i have two of the children and they suffer from diarrhea and vomiting as well i've always comes back to go home to tell you we will be back here again. and with the same regularity as no means visits to the hospital the smugglers continue to spill gasoline into dark pentagons water system in this remote and peaceful part of iraq ignorance and agree are as dangerous as in the rest of the country sebastian meyer northern iraq fourteen. get our top stories and analysis at our dot com and let's check through some of what we're lining up for you today russian fashion really inconclusive in moscow they've got the cream of the catwalk for next season's good tour as well as a look back stage. and prenatal social siblings italian scientists discover unborn babies interact as early as four and

a half months into pregnancy had to walk on to discover how humans are hardwired to get along. central asian gas deliveries to europe are at stake as russia's president dmitri medvedev visits took minutes stunt leaders of both countries are to discuss the proposed pipeline that will connect caspian gas to the south stream which will pump the energy under the black sea to italy and other european countries now the linking project was proposed in two thousand and seven but is still being negotiated the two presidents are also to talk about security in the region and drug trafficking from afghanistan. and now to some other news in brief for you at least one hundred thirty people have killed and hundreds are seriously ill after

a suspected call over outbreak in rural of the stream of those needed treatment have a well hospital staff and facilities doctors are now waiting for test results to confirm the cause of the infections many people are still living in unsanitary conditions after january's devastating earthquake which killed some three hundred thousand people. and doctors also fear a color epidemic in the forehead west african nation of bennett and seasonably heavy rains have left that hundred thousand homeless with people for sleep on pavements and in makeshift shelters officials say forty three people have been killed in the last two weeks. and now everyone cals in russia this week with a nationwide sense is now underway it's an effort to better understand today's population from current living standards to improving its future and the stacy bivins found out census takers are reaching out in all directions. the

ability to defy gravity is not an excuse to deny earthly responsibilities even in space cause menards are answering questions from russia's twenty ten senses your nationality russian elinor's of our sky has the job of reaching out to orbit the ultimate and long distance phone calls. when it was my first time i felt more anxious and now maybe because i already know what it's like i'm a little bit less anxious but still i am. this out of this world q. and a is meant to inspire russians a matter how busy or how far away they are to take a moment and fill out the census that's because it's believed that the questions that apply here could lead to some answers that could solve some of the nation's biggest problems the questionnaire attempts to probe issues such as why russia's birth rate is so low and its death rate so high a comparison to european countries data collected is meant to show who makes up

question households learn what their resources are and identify how government can improve their quality of life and with the slogan everyone matters to russia everyone from those serving their country to those serving time are being counted. how else would we know what kind of financial situation rushes in what our social situation is how will we know how many people live in russia they're doing it for us i think it's a necessity and that was why i went to take part in it. and less captivated surroundings people like these young men and women are hoping not to be turned away before the questionnaire is complete. this family of three is doing well but mom and dad are filling out the forms as a form of security. now i feel. how but maybe in future. if i don't have to. ask

the government or. have this information about me but for now it's the government that's counting on the population says he didn't r t. o u he is here now with a business. hello and a very warm welcome time to delve into the world of business there are also clinical shareholders have voted against changing the board of directors at an extraordinary general meeting in moscow the vote was called to end debate a battle between its two main stockholders interests and roussel want control of the russian mining giant with each only twenty five percent or correspondent daniel bushell asked roussel stretches it director if the dispute could damage the company . any dispute is affecting the company but the question is whether the dispute leads to any positive trend supposed to changes and we believe that the whole

idea which we are promoting when we were calling for the c.g.m. is to actually rebalance the board in a manner where they'll be known come through and shareholder who are still trying to take this conflict for the for example to the court it's not going to fight isn't the wall it goes it's a different story it's about muso being a shareholder in the us trying to change the situation and so that every single intense billion has been planned is implemented results are in line with international competitors what's wrong with the running of the company it's a really really the best month but it has no strategy and it has cash on the bells so either management should come to the board with the proper strategy which would include the dunny growth projects and we'll explain that's where this money is have to be spent and their spending would create additional value to all share this if that's what's happening then it should be paid out as if you believe no nickel

mines to shareholders actually support resells bid absolute majority of independent shareholders have supported the idea for you which neither of the big shareholders have ever actually had a dialogue with this is why not to shareholders such a big supporter of mine that shareholders is actually a big victory does russo want to braze north because dividends so it can pay off or so that we are not looking for the rules to pay greater dividends but we are just saying that the company should either spend money for a gunny growth projects or the dividends should be paid out to the shareholders for shareholders effectively to decide what to do this new business funds we are you paying out there way ahead of schedule we do not believe there is dividends doesn't interest also support the display. of course it's here but the smoke assail before you get it from the media it looks like it that they going to be proposing a civil between. the rows shows which is effectively an exchange

one non-corrosive for another in the us in zero program we are supporting that more new toys in. the bin on grasses are spinning the more dishonest far as i know from the from the media again the going to be one year restriction for the smoke to be sold to the market was resold even within sources through the media has communication broken down people we talking to each other for why the long period of time since small dogs may we've been trying to implement this program but unfortunately nothing was happening in this particular situation we had no other choice but to go public and talk to them in order to show the. timetable of it how the markets are faring and here in russia the markets relative to six month highs on thursday with the r.t.s. closing more than three percent higher it was on the back of gains and persian metals and also as burbank three to be and surged after the government announced it

will sell stakes as part of a find here privatization program to burbank entry to be jumped more than five percent on the my six. let's move to asia now where friday's trading has already started stocks are mixed this hour hong kong shares of pulling low as investors locking in profits on property developers and insurers and in tokyo the nikkei is now going higher in pushes trade as investors were wary head of the g. twenty outcome and earnings reports next week the end strength also continued to focus investors' attention as many as many were reluctant to put money into the market amid a rising currency. the ruble has fallen to its lowest level this year against the euro dollar currency busk it but as the core of who is the central bank's not too concerned about the weakness as it focuses attention on controlling inflation. the government is increasingly a person way that the rouble 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 car and say well this happens allow 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 sense of the panic about the current valuation of the ruble unlike in two thousand and eight when the government ground 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 lift the value of the car and say in the medium term . the measures that can prop up the nation or currency are the transfer of some

export oil contracts to the ruble and increasing the volume of frugal deals between the c.i.s. countries russia has just announced a large scale privatization inflow of capital prompted by these deals will also have a positive impact on the ruble status on the world market paradoxically the current weakness of the russian ruble contrasts with the problems faced by many other countries struggling to restrain their currencies at the moment that perhaps explains why the russian government is in no hurry to alter its course dramatically that's an article of business our team. well that's your business update for this hour join me for more next hour and don't forget you can get more stories while web site r.t. dot com slash business.