ever since but will now seriously be on the table in next month's allow mug russia nato meeting to take place in lisbon and possibly even before that when they take secretary-general anders fogh rasmussen visits moscow well one the particular area in which both russia and they say you can cooperate is in the own going issue of afghanistan and maintaining peace in that area and also in the ongoing fight against drug trafficking that comes out of afghanistan earlier this week several leading u.k. newspapers and made the statement that russia would be sending troops back into the country to help in training afghan forces now russia's envoy they say to me to be a ruggles that has flatly denied that another area of potential cooperation is in the future discussion on the europe walled missile defense shield in these spiritual improved russian aid so of friendship nato has said that it very much

wants nato h.b.o. russia rather to be a policy of that discussion on how best to implement that missile defense shield across europe. reporting there and if you're the editor in chief of the russia in global affairs magazine says the memories of the bitterness over the experience are too fresh from moscow to send troops back into the country. russia's been going to start before and experience was such terrible that i can't imagine any circumstances under which russia will will return to afghanistan. rumors are based i guess. intensified discussion of future of understand which is also in the framework of need to a russian nato calls so and so it's not about the russian troops but disappearing and fighting it's about how russia can support future a constellation of regime situation by other means spying on me with their meals

and dr adrian pabst he's a lecturer in politics at the university of kent says if russia is to provide helicopters and training to nato in afghanistan there is a legitimate reason for that i think that hardcore security interest that moscow is quite legitimately defending does two things one is terrorism moscow is worried that extremism from afghanistan pakistan will spread across central asia and also perhaps fuel conflict in in russia and secondly the flow of drugs which is a major security health issue because it of course is part of organized crime and cause a substantial social and physical damage among drug users in russia so russia's got a legitimate interest it's defending them and it's just right it does so. perhaps talking to me a little earlier from london well while nato has admitted it needs help in

afghanistan there are already fears that the end of operations in iraq will plunge the country into crisis it follows revelations from wiki leaks which claimed torture is already widespread the whistleblower website also raise concerns that kurdish controlled northern iraq will erupt into bloodshed when u.s. troops withdraw sebastian meyer has more. a dawn raid a race against time to catch militants off guard in the iraqi province of kirkuk where in the suburb of duck cook and the police have just a few minutes to get into position before sunrise. daybreak's in the raid begins police under the supervision of the u.s. army go door to door searching rooms and checking residents against lists of unknown terrorists to kirkuk police dominated heavily by kurds have been remarkably successful recently they have cut terror attacks by over fifty percent in the past few months these guys are very good they are very good and they're very good at intelligence and develop they are gathering intelligence and developing

intelligence and the other submerged wrong place for not worried about what others mainly the city is non kurds are doing here in downtown they're going to divide with mr bertram caricature of the youth with their own historic claim of kirkuk is a unique city in iraq a true melting pot of all the different ethnicities in the country but this mixture continues to lead to extremely volatile ethnic tensions a two thousand and nine field report that was recently leaked by the whistleblower wiki leaks states that without strong unfair influence likely from a third party these tensions may quickly turn to violence after the u.s. forces withdraw all of this in terms of security when the u.s. leaves it will be no independent security force right now the securities from the kurdish side of the city this is the truth when the u.s. leaves things will get worse it will be conflicts arabs will stand up and prayed and we should say with the mayor and this will buy loads by god forbid both wars

will begin between the ethnic groups and we are not an example of this violence wasn't long in coming no more than five minutes after we finished the interview a roadside bomb targeting the police detonated in the center of the city. luckily for the police the terrorists missed it appears that despite the gains that the police are making. the american troop withdrawal could easily lead to a return to sectarianism and care cook for kurds arabs and turkmen alike the consequences of the u.s. led war have left the future of kirkuk very much uncertain sebastian meyer care cook for r.t. . still ahead this hour on r.t. u.s. senators enjoying the perks of insider trading. american officials seem to be using legal loopholes to fatten their wallets plus. since global warming is just a lot of hot air we talk to activists who say mother nature gave them a sign that they are right by sending smooth two years ago all the details in a few minutes we hear. the first recently discovered oil reserves in the eastern

mediterranean looks set to become the latest point of tension in the troubled middle east at least four major competitors are staking their claim israel lebanon turkey and cyprus all want to peace but with no clearly defined maritime borders the fight could be linked and bitter and despite clear border demarcation israel has already gained the upper hand and started developing two sides takes a closer look now at the divisive deposits. prayer is a long time in coming then we have been begging for a year yeah please lord don't let me down don't let me down and finally jackie malaysia's praise have been answered the oil company he's invested in reportedly hitting bingo underground still talking about the largest amount of oil ever to be discovered in the state of israel there's a joke in israel that when moses led the jews out of egypt he took a wrong turn on his way to the promised land bringing them to the one spot in the

middle east that has no oil but that punchline might need to change because it seems that moses might not have been so wrong after all in two thousand and nine israel announced the discovery of a first major natural gas field off its coast but the most recent reports from the giant live ethan natural gas site off the coast of haifa point to a potential for billion barrels of black gold we will be able to future. energy. it will be less expensive which is how important. from a political. appointee we were surely we should be less dependent on the. import of foreign oil but it's not only israel lane came to the reserves greek cyprus to keep and lebanon also say the oil is and while the international law allows a country to drill in the so-called continental shelf off the coast the fact that

israel and lebanon have never agreed on maritime boundaries makes it clear when israel and lebanon begins i know the club about how its version of think the border line will pass if they we have a negotiation and i know that the us will have its own version or the pub but they're not in the agreement on whether and because the two countries are enemy states there's unlikely to be any agreement anytime soon both have threatened to go to war over the issue obviously this is an israeli company. company and. will not be allowed to enter into lebanese territory or will have any further connection with ration of lebanese gas let alone filed a complaint with the united nations after israel placed floating markers extending two miles into the sea and weighing in on the conflict hizbollah says because the

major political actor in lebanon. and his strongest supporter from the syrian you around. and it would seem if we take statements and public positions seriously which we are they were interesting for me to really creating tension israel has the upper hand for now it's already struck a deal with cyprus and is preparing to start extraction while living on still needs to sort out the boundaries of its economic zone with cyprus and syria and it will be years before it has the evidence it needs to show that israel's fields extend into lebanese territory policia r.t. tel aviv. whatever gets much more for you on our website is r.t. dot com to simply log on and explore at your will here's a quick look at what might catch a ride of the moment a sort of powers forward with its twenty fourteen winter olympic preparations the massive construction work with real secrets of russia's ancient past. to discover

why archaeologists mates are racing to the site. and going against tradition find out why young couples in india face family for taking money to put on parenthood those stories and plenty of other features at all to. the. capitol hill insiders in the u.s. the thought to be abusing their position to make some extra pocket money the wall street journal has reported that many in congress taking unfair advantage of the knowledge of markets and as. reports it's not even illegal. the annual salary of members of the united states congress one hundred seventy four thousand dollars the profit they can make by trading on inside information

priceless. a number of u.s. lawmakers and dozens of congress staffers have reportedly traded thousands of dollars worth of stocks of companies they or their crosses wrote last for under the u.s. law there is no conflict of interest here they're just plain cheating and it's not fair what they're doing currently all u.s. lawmakers and their highest paid staffers have to do is to disclose information once a year on their finances by the analysis of the wall street journal u.s. public servants have been phenomenally successful trading stock at the peak of the wall street crisis senator spencer backus made tens of thousands of dollars betting against the market that he's a media helps oversee and he's the ranking member on the house committee on financial services. chris miller a top energy policy advisor to the senate majority leader harry reid nearly doubled his bet when his boss helped pass legislation that wand up benefiting the fir after

his staff or his name was mentioned in a list of capitol hill stock traders mr reed reprimanded his aide. because chris mellon. my attempts to talk to some of those involved were time consuming and unsuccessful. we talk a lot about exporting democracy one of the bedrocks of a successful democracy i believe is freedom from corruption the sense that elected officials are elected to serve the public not to and hence their own wallets or that of their friends or cronies or family congressman brian baird offered a bill that would ban insider trading on capitol hill years ago but the act received the support of only nine out of four hundred thirty five members in the house of representatives and none in the senate and in this case you've got. the

possibility of making great amounts of money. in ways that are illegal in ways that are hard to detect congressman baird says annual disclosure reports are not enough to my knowledge there is no human being employed by the congress of the united states who has looked at our finance reports with a with an eye towards possible conflict of interest now there is no initiative to change the rules what for the rest of america it's perfectly legal for the country's lawmakers why would they want to change it as it is a public servant stock market activity is are hard to track there are no investigators here on the hill doing that and some believe those senators and staffers who have recently been in the spotlight are just the tip of the iceberg than a step down are to washington d.c. . bruce being from michigan state university's college of law says the us has made corruption legal and there's more in this in cross talk with peter de ville is cast

aside there's only one way to beat corruption democratically and that's through elections. congress has had its hands completely into this financial crisis in the late ninety's. there is no doubt that they're not going to jail the only thing you can do to a congressman or a senator is not elect them i mean. we're marveling at the fact that there's almost one hundred seats available that are contested well i recall that there are four hundred thirty five seats up every year what what is it what do we call it when three hundred thirty five of the guys are in serious contests we don't call it corruption but in this country there's no doubt that we have legalized what in other countries we call corruption. the institutions are set up to accommodate the congressman and the congress and make the rules.

cost will come your way very shortly here in r.t. global warming skeptics in the u.k. have gathered to mark what they've dubbed the climate fools day well on this day two years ago snow fell in london as the british parliament was debating a bill to tackle global warming it was the first such early snowfall for over eighty years activists claim the ironic coincidence was proof that the bill is a waste of billions of taxpayer pounds one of those doubting the reality of climate change and john o'sullivan who joins us now live from london thanks very much for joining before i ask you are what you achieved on climate falls day let me ask you this those who believe in global warming say they have real evidence showing a sudden rise in c o two in the perma rise in the last century now they see this as a proof of manmade climate change so how do you see it. well like you we've seen in

your previous article we are looking out to a corruption issues here that are not made known to the public today in parliament we put evidence to parliamentarians to show that around the world climate skeptics are brilliant into court national government and whether whether agencies and showing that they do not have a bona fide climate record now it came to as a great surprise to many parliament turns today when we explained to them in new zealand last week a massive defeat for the global warming occurred when new zealand skeptics challenge the global climate record in court and lo and behold the new zealand government turned up and said there is no official temperature record from new zealand so what is your line then you're saying that there is climate change but it's not actually linked to man's actions. well nobody disagrees that climate changes climate change before point five billion years we're not arguing about

something trivial like the issue of climate change the real issue here is corruption now what we're trying to do is ask the governments around the world to show us the evidence it's not good enough to tell us that they have the records we found time after time here in england with the c.r.u. last year and recently in new zealand when challenge the government agencies cannot produce the record of what you might want to let me talk about you say evidence i mean i can give you evidence of what happened here last summer this past summer here in russia devastating effects after the hottest summer on record also. this winters in europe in centuries you know this is the intelligible evidence doesn't take a genius to say then must be something going on here you know what i thank you very much for raising the issue of the recent phenomenon both in russia and in pakistan as we saw today in parliament we had a fantastic speech presented by piers corbyn of weather action who predicted weeks in advance these events will occur now he's called in is the leading long range

weather forecaster in the world and when i spoke to him i said to him do you believe greenhouse gases are changing the climate and he said to me john categorically no the sun drives the climate and he is like me prepared to stand up and say this is a monumental fraud now you can argue all you like about the records but until we get the records shown in court we just don't believe so you're talking about corruption and fraud in terms what the government's politicians businesses are all trying to make money out of something that actually doesn't exist. all right let's just project a bit of joined up thinking here we have seen corruption in the subprime lending market we have seen it in congress your previous article showed your view is that the issue now in congress is about politicians being bought off for financial gain now this is not limited to just the issues of congress it's limited it goes across

the climate change we have along with the last year please show us the evidence we are not getting to see the evidence we referred to russia and i've given you a perfect example of somebody who says it's nonsense just briefly was your day successful though today this climate fools day i did you convince people in parliament very very briefly what did you achieve. a fantastic day we've got wonderful projects ahead we're bringing out a documentary in a book next month we're cracking the broad wide open john o'sullivan climate change skeptic and writer thanks for joining us on r.t. . thank you for. what are let's have a quick look at some other stories making headlines around the world this wednesday the former president of argentina next cochon has died of a heart attack the news has shocked the country as many expect sixty year old to win the next presidential elections it was thought he might succeed his wife cristina fernandez who is currently looking at and will be remembered for his successful battle against economic crisis an attempt to build bridges with the

country's south south american neighbors. the government the remaining who survived a no confidence vote in the parliament of a planned austerity measures protesters hit the streets in the capital book arrest on wednesday to demonstrate against proposed budget cuts caressed was forced to cut public sector wages and government spending to comply with an i.m.f. loan to help remain a last. brings up to date for the moment i'll be back with another update for you very soon in the meantime stephanie is next with the business. hello and welcome to the business bulletin the american company responsible for running operations that one may be swapped to for a russian company exxon lefty gas has twice asked the government to raise subsidies for the oil and gas projects while production has fallen the audit chamber says involving russian companies in similar ventures has previously raise production and

cut costs but according to the energy minister the issue of replacing the operator hasn't been considered as yet. top russian still produces a concentrating on domestic consumers to boost profits recent changes in tax so and other government incentives have made the market more attractive this is also giving a competitive edge to russian companies over the european and asian pits but in a question of reports. top russian natural producer seven star has opened to new plants and the moscow region to supply cow manufacturers with precise do you is just one of a number of that are ramping up production to profit from growing domestic demand you have asked is upgrading its plant in the world mountains while came plans to invest up to three billion dollars in the country to boost capacity. we are planning to produce ten million tons of metal this year we're going to increase the output by some twenty percent by twenty level by another twenty percent the year

after our aim was to restore the pre-crisis output recent changes in tax law will have made it more profitable for russian companies to sell processed macel to domestic consumers rather than exporting in addition to the state has gone for tax breaks to foreign carmakers if they buy supplies from russian producers it's a part of the government's plan to encourage manufacturers to produce cars from start to finish with a locally sourced materials the russian market is recovering has recovered enough at all sure enough straddle xed here to consume all finished feel and therefore make the russian steel makers even a better positional competitor compared to the global still makers. selling precise still in russia can be three times as profitable as sounding it abroad but the market is being destroyed by government intervention worldwide the demand for still has yet to recover from the financial crisis and prices remain weak so producers

here have little reason not to take advantage of the situation by doing business on . a list of the top fifteen most influential russian businessmen has been published the russian paper and is a v.c. mike that's a commission the list from head alexei mellow russian railways boss of the couldn't and whistles that a pass at the top thirty seven experts compiled the survey from. total of one hundred seven candidates placing them in four categories of influence a minimal a moderate high and very high. let's turn now to the to markets european stocks finished and low on wednesday following some weak u.s. manufacturing data the footsie shed more than one percent with minors and leading the declines. and wall street is on the side in wednesday's session about follows that weak durable goods data and investor speculation that the federal reserve may take a multiple shift approach to stimulating the economy. and here in moscow the russian

markets finished lower on say with but can see shedding more than one percent all the bishops finished in the lead with banks amongst the worst performers. russian royal ways it has set the i.p.o. price range for shares in its subsidiary trying to contain it at seventy nine to ninety nine dollars per share the company could raise as much as five hundred million dollars in london based. on russia's biggest mobile phone retell you have reset is considering selling thirty percent of it chess on the london stock exchange in march the company has already started discussions with banks to underwrite the offer but it still needs to get the agreement of some of its biggest shareholders. about one fifth of russian insurance companies are facing bankruptcy the insurance watchdog said out of seven hundred firms up to two hundred fifty are in financial difficulties but major market players say the industry is in need of some rationalization. those who are not of they will yourselves or

leave the market it will make a market healthy and good news is that the whole theory of the market of competence i believe probably sees five real cost the most will nords wrongly be affected by these. monster cable car production this year could reach pre-crisis levels according to pricewaterhouse coopers the number of cars produced this year could reach seventy million and here in russia it could rise to one point seven million. pre-crisis in two thousand and seven global manufacturing was about just under seventy million units and it looks as though we estimate that it will come back to seventy million units globally in two thousand and ten so we're back to where we were pre-crisis book but there's a big difference because the bric so-called bric countries were just under twenty

percent of the two thousand and seven production but it's going to be up to about thirty percent of two thousand and ten in other words has been a bit of a shift from the rest of the world basically to countries. that's all the business news for now but of course you can always five months stories if you know going to a website about saltine called lunch.

most of the coosa jolene's contain explicit intention to make your e a strong limits to see your slides milledgeville magic has better players in the sky the seeds of hope to protect our hearts the ever so you can provide such accuracy to many forms modern in six months young days here on. we've dumped a few jerks covered. news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. china corporations are all today.

good to have you with us top stories now that russia is seeking to prevent nato from placing major forces close to its border with a proposal that would limit the military presence in this new state hoping for closer cooperation with moscow particularly european missile defense and. us troops leave the kurdish controlled region. to the whistle blowing web site wiki leaks released documents highlighting cases. recently discovered in the eastern mediterranean. claims but without.

borders experts predict the countries are unlikely to reach agreement any terms. i'll be back with more news more developments in the meantime we discuss legal loopholes in the u.s. and corruption they are the main issues on our program next. wealthy british style it's time to. find out what's really happening to the global economy.