ever since but will now seriously be on the table in next month's allow mug russia name meetings 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 can cooperate is in the ongoing issue of afghanistan and maintaining peace in that area and also in the ongoing fines against drug trafficking that comes out of afghanistan earlier this week several leading u.k. newspapers i made the statement that russia would be a sending of troops back into the country to help in training afghan forces now russia's envoy they say to be at ruggles and has flatly denied that another area of potential corporation is in their future discussion on the europe walled missile defense shield in these spiritual improved a russian made so of friendship nato has said that it very much wants nato h.b.o.

russia role there to be a policy of that discussion on how best to implement that missile defense shield for security. reporting there and. the editor in chief of the russian magazine says the memories of the bitterness over the experience of two fresh from moscow to send troops back into the country. russia has been. before and experience was such a terrible that i can't imagine in the circumstances under which russia will return to afghanistan. rumors are obese i guess. into a discussion of the world's future or we're going to stand which is also in the framework of need to russia neutral and saw but it's not about the russian troops but disappearing and fighting it's about how russia can support future of course through a. regime of the situation by other means spying on me. and

talk to adrian pabst a lecturer in politics at the university of kent says if russia is to provide helicopters and training to nato in afghanistan there's a legitimate reason for that i think the 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 and health issue because it of course is part of organized crime and causes such terrible 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 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 whistleblower website also raised concerns that could is controlled northern iraq would 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 we're in the suburb of duck cook and the police have just a few minutes to get into position before sunrise. daybreak's and 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. dominated heavily by kurds have been remarkably successful recently they've 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 sort of verge growth he's not worried about but others mainly the city's non

kurds are here in downtown they're going to live with her charity work but they are used to their own historic way with 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 will in terms of security when the u.s. leaves there will be no independent security force right now the security's from the kurdish side of the city this is the truth when the u.s. leaves things will get worse it will be conflict arabs will stand up and prayed and we should say with this well. i got her bit but words will begin with.

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 in kirkuk 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. . well still ahead the us senate is enjoying the perks of insider trading. looks at how american officials seem to be using legal loopholes to fatten their wallets plus. since global warming is not a partner it's to say mother nature gave them a sign that they're right by sending snow two years ago all the details in a few minutes from the. first recently discovered all 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 they all want to peace but with no clearly defined maritime borders the fight could be lengthy and bitter and despite unclear border demarcation israel has already gained the upper hand and started developing two sites paula slid takes a closer look now at the divisive deposits. prayer is a long time in coming more than we have been begging for a year a year please lord don't let me down don't let me down and finally jackie relations prays have been answered the oil company he's invested in reportedly hitting bingo underground we're still talking about the largest amount of oil average 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 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 will surely we will be less dependent on the. import of foreign oil but it's not only is rolling claim to the reserves greek cyprus and lebanon also say the oils there is and while the international law allows a country to drill in the so-called continental shelf of its coast the fact that

israel and lebanon have never agreed on maritime boundaries makes it unclear what israel in and lebanon begins i know the club about how its version of think the border line will pass if and when they will have a negotiation they know they're going to have its own version or their own poll but they're not 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. an israeli company and. will not be allowed to enter into lebanese territory or will have any further connection with. a lebanese gas lebanon filed a complaint with the united nations after israel placed markers extending two miles into the sea and weighing in on the conflict hizbollah is the major political actor

in lebanon. and is strongly supported from the syrian you around. and it would seem if we take statements and public position seriously which we are to their interest in form and 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 lebanon 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 policy r.t. television. whatever get there's much more for you on our website it's r.t. dot com online time just log on and explore at your world is a quick look at what might catch your eye at the moment. and so cheap power is for when it's twenty forty in winter olympic preparations the massive construction work reveals secrets of russia's ancient past had to r.t.

dot com to discover why archaeologists fleets of racing to the site. going against tradition you can find out why young couples in india face family fallouts for taking money to control every ball available online dot com. capitol hill insiders in the u.s. are thought to be abusing their position to make some extra pocket money the wall street journal has reported that many in congress are taking unfair advantage of their knowledge of markets as art is going to go on reports it's not even legal. 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 several portably traded thousands of dollars worth of stocks of companies they or their processes 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 markets that he's committee 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 bat when his boss helped pass legislation that won't up benefiting the fur after his staff or his name was mentioned in a list of capitol hill stock traders mr reid reprimanded his eight. because of course. 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 phone the 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 aren't illegal and ways that are hard to detect congressman baird says and you'll 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 financial 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 is cheating it's perfectly legal for the country's lawmakers why would they want to change it as it is now a public servants stock market activities 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 vanished on our washington d.c. . bruce being from michigan state university's college of law says the u.s.

has made corruption legal when an hour from now there's more on this in cross talk with peter viles guest 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 or 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 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

congressmen and the congress and make the rules. global warming skeptics in the u.k. have gathered to mark what they've dubbed climate fools 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 claimed the ironic coincidence was just more proof that the bill is a waste billions of. one of those thomas is reverend philip foster who sees no reason to believe manmade c o two. there's not a particularly dramatic rise in c o two. and anyway the carbon dioxide does not affect the climate i think that's a fundamental statement that is the misconnection that the climate warmest or

alarmists of made if there is climate change of course but that is a natural thing but no it isn't to due to man's actions anyway man's amount of carbon dioxide represents a tiny proportion of the shift anyway about four percent whether extreme events always take place always have and always will blame them on human emissions is simply. pointless because there is no real connection. now let's have a quick look at some other stories making headlines around the world at this stage of the day the former president of argentina. has died of a heart attack the news of the country has many expected the sixty year old when his sixty year old to win the next presidential elections it was thought he might succeed his wife cristina fernandez who's currently in office kitchener will be remembered for his successful battle against economic crisis and attempts to build bridges for the country's south american. government in romania had survived

a no confidence vote in the parliament over planned austerity measures thirty thousand protesters hit the streets in the capital bucharest on wednesday to demonstrate against proposed budget cuts the grass was forced to cut public sector wages and government spending to comply with the i.m.f. loans that helped keep afloat. next door to talks to. him he's a veteran from behind the scenes of u.k. relations to point out of membership of the european union is worth. coming up short here.

thank you very much for talking to us now first of all tell me how much it costs the u.k. to be a member of the well that's of both a very important question and a very tricky question to ask. in the first instance the treasury writes a check to the european union. every fortnight to the sum of eight hundred million pounds now that's not the whole picture because that is basically that's the gross contribution some of that money comes back as part of the overall net deal over which the treasury has a pair of limited say that's not necessarily well spent however. once you factor in the the direct and indirect costs associated with the you membership the overall bill for business and for the country could be as high as two hundred billion pounds a year the problem is that nobody knows this because there has not been

a cost benefit analysis if you e.u. membership so that's a huge question mark there which the taxpayers alliance and other organizations are campaigning to get the answer to where does that money go well a lot of it doesn't come back into the into the u.k. because the u.k. is after germany the second largest contributor to the the e.u. budget certainly in net terms and along with a small number of northern european countries it's one of the one of the few which are overall net contributors so you could say that a lot of it goes in terms of subsidizing and upgrading the superstructure and infrastructure of eastern and southern europe which from a british taxpayers viewpoint one has to question is a british taxpayer contributing billions of pounds a year effectively to another country is that it's not proper use of taxpayers' money so you're talking about one hundred ten billion euros which is an impossible think athame people to understand what does it mean what would it buy in real terms

well let's let's narrow this down a little bit more i mean a hundred hundred ten billion euros is the overall cost including all evacuations in the red tape the cost of the regulations and red tape in this is based on the commission's own osa to sticks the cost of the regulations is for that in terms of the u.k. is greater than the actual value of the trade that it's meant to regulate the second thing is if you just look at the simple physical cost and the membership fee that is the equivalent of forming a chain along appear and dumping a block of gold off the end of it every one hundred seconds. it's a gold ingots every hundred seconds just cast into the watery depths and in terms of schools and hospitals which is something that desperately needs to upgrade what about that now it's about a new hospital every three days i think it pays for the world family in two days i think it's something like every five days is the equipment to repairing every

single cathedral in england and when we were doing the research for a book of ten years on which it looks hypothetically at where the u.k. would be indeed any country would it would be were we to leave the european union which is stop breaking down the but the benefits that we could be spending the money on other than into what's basically a financial sinkhole from the u.k. taxpayers viewpoint it's just a waste of money isn't it chair less in this sort of global economy to talk about british money for british people well not really because the british taxpayer of course is funding taxes and would naturally expect that the money to be spent on things which are of benefit to themselves i mean it's fundamentally old you know that that money you talk about a global economy but of course the money isn't going to. say. north america it's a european system it's not a global system so we're short of having a global. economy with the european union if that's what you really like

a lot of politicians say that it's just not realistic to me the e.u. wholesale but you think differently we already have with respect to the european union about ten different levels of association with the european union you have countries which are full members such as france you have countries which have got certain dr such as the u.k. which is opted out of the single currency you have countries which are part of the european economic area such as norway you have countries which have got bilateral trading agreements such as canada and mexico there's even a special form of association for. countries like north korea now i'm not saying we should have a form of association with the year that pyongyang has but we're simply saying if you have ten different ways of of trading and allying in a series cheating with with the source and you to do opinion there's a mechanism in there somewhere which is appropriate for any country and he doesn't have to be for membership we live in a world they don't we which is essentially dominated by superpowers the united

states russia china and india don't the smaller countries of the european union need each other well absolutely not it's good that we're cooperating where we want to cooperate it's good that we're trading we're going to when we want to trade let's not kid ourselves i mean the european union is in the big picture it's big it's it's in danger of becoming a school or tech part of the world the voicing economies in the world of obviously in the far east india china and also you know brazil indonesia and other places now rather than linking ourselves too closely with one part of the of the world trading system which is decreasing in importance the u.k. or any european country should be more about being involved in a more proactive free trade across the whole world rather than becoming part of a regional association which is risks becoming a pretext reproduction look what we're seeing in europe at the moment is the degree of social unrest in response to the austerity measures because of the debt crisis

do you see that impacting not just on the same but on the european union as a political entity yeah and the sad thing is it was something that you were skeptics who warning about even while the euro zone was being created we were saying that if you're going to be creating a currency union then you have to have a full economic union in order to whether these the shocks and you have to have a model so that where there is an asymmetric shock in one part of the the either basically you can have the larger most on unemployed. you have to move from one part of the country to the other or you have large amounts of financial reserves which are able to support the idea. a couple of examples which your viewers might be familiar with in the u.k. you have for instance you have a single currency oh it's called a pound. and if liverpool is in recession what happens is because there is social

mobility in the u.k. people from liverpool going to find a job in manchester or down in london or whatever and also you have a central government which pays part of the tax revenue into a pool in order to live and we generated now people accept that because there is this sense of of the democrats the sense of common citizenship in a sort of sharing together you don't get in the you thank you very much thank you. for the. killings continue to. make serious trying to see your slides middle of the magic has better players in the sky. to protect our lives the obviously we can provide such accuracy to many forms.

we've got the future covered. if. bonds from phones to. screw stunts on t.v. don't come. download the official antti up location on the phone on pod touch from the top story. which all teach life on the go. if video on demand on t.v.'s mine old costs and feeds now in the palm of your. question on all t.v.

dot com. more news today violence is once again flared up the film these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. china corporations are today. in the czech republic he's available in. central europe. will stop. in bosnia and herzegovina. beach. towns. in.

russia. with a proposal that would limit his military presence in its newest member states. particularly in europe. u.s. troops leave the kurdish controlled region. recently

. with. the countries are likely to reach agreements. with. the meantime technology. and how it still helping to change. hello and welcome to technology update this month the show goes middle only without the head banging we're talking about the most elementary of materials that have helped build our civilization and still find innovative new applications today the soviet metallurgical industry was blasting past competitors around the same time heavy men.