it will most likely be ratified by the end of this week it seems the only thing that could be in the way of the ratification are partisan games political bargaining which have nothing to do with the treaty itself and its content speaking of bargaining at some point the senate minority leader mitch mcconnell came out and said republicans won't want any democrat initiatives if they don't extend tax cuts for the rich so you get a sense open the expand will willard be willing culture on capitol hill on the substance of the treaty whether it's good or bad for america has long stopped being the focus of discussions here in washington to the point when it could become a threat to the u.s. national security a world without buying u.s. russia arms control treaties is a more dangerous world the obama administration is going out of its way to have the deal ratified the president's arguably major foreign policy chief meant is on the line not only does the start nuclear arsenals of both countries by a third it's also seen as

a symbol of trust between the two nuclear superpowers russia has cooperated with us on critical issues to our national security like iran sanctions transit to supply our troops in afghanistan working on securing loose nuclear materials and the relationships and trust that are built from the new start treaty spill over into a whole host of other national security issues that are vital importance to america these shoe of trust and america's reputation globally was addressed by the chairman of the senate foreign relations committee every senator has an obligation to ask that question of themselves over the course of these next days are we a credible partner can other nations rely on us what happens when the present united states negotiates a treaty and he comes back here and the rest of the world sees that a treaty bogged down not in the substance of the treaty. but in the politics of the

day and if the treaty does get bogged down this year chances are the new senate which is going to be more republican and obama whole style will put off the new start indefinitely maybe for months or even years to get a check on our t. washington d.c. democrat party strategist robert wiener told me that the main reason the treaty is not ratified yet is down to republicans election cycle mentality that would be stupid for the republicans to continue to block it but then again they want to block everything in the past republicans used to work with democrats now since a new game which they've been wanting to kill everything publicans have learned that sound bites can win elections instead of good governing something has to change we have to get past two year old election cycles and think in terms of the good of the country something has to happen to help us to good governance but good governance in the world not just the united states includes passage of the start

treaty i think perhaps by embarrassing the republicans from trust stopping them from playing politics which is dangerous it's devastating it could cause terrorism to succeed they will come around and pass this treaty coming up on our t.v. tonight the wiki leaks founder gets pale in britain those who support his insist the charges against him are a cover for the us to get their hands on the. hole so he gets behind the scenes of going to take the next international space station in a war we've got the latest on their progress. the young russian woman arrested in london almost two weeks ago on suspicion of spying has been released on bail twenty five year old culture to live it who's now facing deportation worked as an assistant to produce m.p. mike hancock the u.k. says she used her position to gather information about the country's nuclear facilities. it has been speaking to. she was released around five

o'clock last night seemed quite an unexpected decision she seemed a bit shocked by the whole process very relieved obviously to be back but she says she's really had no time to even tired around sort of think about things and think about what the implications are this is not over. yet it doesn't seem she has been released but she is very strict bail conditions she told me that she wasn't able to meet with anybody without the express permission of the home secretary so she wants to meet with anyone give any interviews talk to anybody she has to apply in writing through her lawyers to the home office and then with five days notice and then they will decide whether or not she is allowed to meet with them really conditions that amount to house arrest she's also reportedly not allowed to have any contact with her boss mike hancocks a member of parliament or indeed anyone that she worked with during her time in parliament she says that she's also going to do her best to comply with the terms

of. anybody and she still only this time that i spoke to her at the time before that she's done absolutely nothing wrong she says that she was just doing her job working for mike. and she also said that time that she had no evidence presented really difficult for her she and her lawyers are trying to appeal against something that they they really don't know what they're dealing with. perhaps not straight away because she did sound extremely tired when i spoke to her this morning but she does look sexy carry on this fight against her deportation after was detained almost two weeks ago now so she spent two weeks in a detention center. some distance from. the original news that we received was that she was to be deported on the basis presence in the u.k. wasn't conducive to the public goods with the grounds of her deportation she'd been working. inside the house of parliament. and the parliamentary assistant to mike

member of parliament an area in the south of england for two and a half years so she'd been issued with a parliamentary pass and undergo the security checks in order to get hold of that then. she was questioned on her way home from a holiday in croatia she was detained at the airport by customs and border officials questioned about her activities they then let her go and she carries on doing her job and going to work every day until just under two weeks ago when she was then detained by the authorities but this is a story that moved very quickly away from the political arena and into the sort of . details presented in the media this is a girl who is quite tall with no legs she's blown she's russian she wear short skirts and high heels according to her colleagues and she certainly did on the occasions that i've met so this is perfect fodder for tabloid headlines and sure enough they didn't they didn't. so it remains to be seen what's going to happen in

the development of this story. is that it is going to stay in this country on bail for at least a short time and then we'll have to see what happens. correspondent laura the wiki leaks has been granted bail by a british court but with strict conditions. jail until another hearing in two days swedish prosecutors repeating the bell decision so. questions of a rape allegations which. chief prosecutor canceled a previous arrest warrant so there was no reason to suspect that he committed this so wiki leaks site still operating continues to publish confidential american diplomatic cables. the justice. told me the whistle blowers are always. being quite clear from. senior politician in america. the nation for. the taliban or al qaeda. incitement to

violence is something that nobody would want to have hanging over their head and in that respect if it's coming from senior politicians i imagine if you go through the chain of their organization it would be a very serious. problem indeed and i would for one would be very worried anybody who is associated. with wiki leaks or anybody who is associated with. information is sensitive to governments will always be in danger. under surveillance it's not necessary to wiki leaks but there are several other media organizations that exist in the new media on the internet. no doubt been surveyed or watched you have been has no coming up at eight pm g.m.t. artie's financial guru most cards are looked at the financial fallout from the ever continuing stream of wiki leaks.

top stories today russia will buy at least one of mistral helicopter carrier france the companies are currently agreed the price which will be the largest military deal between russia and the nato country. that offers the details of this long negotiated transaction. at this point it really does seem that this deal is going to be sealed at least that's according to russian officials moscow looks set to buy the mistral produced by france this is a huge. helicopter carrier ship it's also capable to transport dozens of tanks and other transport vehicles the negotiations on those deal have been thing teaming for around a year and first washington royce's concerns on a nato member state selling this type of work wittman to russia you know with the restart of relations between moscow and washington the situation seems to have changed previously the french prime minister who's visited the moscow just recently

he said that there are no you know obstacles remaining in this deal and it's incompletion moscow wants to buy at least one mistrial and may also get the license to produce more it's to tori and now it's of thought to just one mistral costs around eight hundred million euros dollars although the final price for this deal still hasn't been decided but russian officials say they expect that the final details and the documents will be finalized on this deal before the end of this year. to be true for serious from the specialist moscow based magazine export of arms he told us the mistral deal will play a major role of boosting russia's industry rather than its military sector. we already have certain technological cooperation with france and there are certain mechanisms in place now it's common practice around the world that when buying

weapons and military equipment importing countries since its own requirements for instance we buy weapons while you organize license production in our country and provide us with your technology etc so naturally russia doesn't want just to buy ships but also produce them itself mastering foreign technology i don't know how it's going to fit in with our military system but it will give our industry an edge distro will be supplied with our equipment of course and our enterprises will participate in this process. so the most recent country to convert to the euro's having a rethink about whether it should stick with the garden state parliamentary speaker richard selig says that they need a plan b. in case they have to switch back to their old money he added that slovakia needs to shore up its financial defenses if the european debt crisis worsens later the country's premier said the greatest ever considered proper denied talk about their former currency but you don't carp is anomalous to be instituted economic and

social studies told me at the time there was no need to switch to the single. i don't think the euro was the savior for us like here i don't think any catastrophic scenario would wipe away to us so if we didn't join during the eurozone let's look at the czech republic. very similar country with their own currency and they are doing pretty well today in slovakia many painful structural reforms happened in the last years we had to save our overall banks in the year two thousand and one and it cost us almost ten percent of g.d.p. so now this like people don't really understand why they should send money to irish banks when we had to foot the bill for our own both by ourselves there is also an issue that. all the talk about the european solidarity. doesn't work in slovakia we have to mention that the slow people are the poorest one in the eurozone so the people really don't understand why they should save their richer richer brothers everybody thought that the greek crisis is just. exit burns on the part of private

markets the irish crisis shows the eurozone has huge problems especially you're banks have a huge problems right now and the eurozone tries to pretend that they can guarantee that of everybody but i don't think it's sustainable i think sooner or later some countries or some banks have to default because i don't think that back spare. strong enough or the economies are strong enough to foot the bill for the banks so i would say the poles have to start and we should buy the paper processes for these before. to get you know his keep up to date on our website with all the latest news from us bloggers and dallas has plenty on going to be interesting to i'm sure stories clicking on right now accelerating into the twenty first century bush's motor industry showcasing there is its first eco friendly hybrid cars we revealed on this program yesterday find out more on buying tonight on the new the website

and i think the song sixty four well anyway a swiss woman defies the age barrier to become a mother for the first time with little help from some russian friends again r t v dot com is the place to be the back story that. veteran american diplomat richard holbrooke has died at the age of sixty nine after undergoing about can see heart surgery big name the bulldozer in his day was best known for pushing the u.s. agenda in the balkans during the bosnian war the dayton agreement much praised by america for ending the conflict is one of his best known achievements but political writer diana johnston says the accord was orchestrated by holbrooke using questionable tactics. the reality is that the united states helped start the boston

war in one thousand nine hundred ninety two by encouraging is a big of it's the boston muslim leader to pull out of an agreement that was made between the three f. think parties that would have prevented the war and then in order to finally stop it. had to turn to slobodan milosevic who desperately wanted to make peace in order to get sanctions lifted from serbia so in fact the united states he used most of it to make peace and hold us on account of that makes it quite clear that it was mostly refuse save the peace accords. making great compromises at the cost of us in service most of it we didn't get any credit for that but in fact was in close of owen hall book land and set down in the tent of the albanian separate is just so he combined this dynasty with the next door nary

a degree of ingratitude and when milosevic died in prison holbrooke made a comment calling him a monster so i feel that although one usually with specs the did it right after they die hard work and self set an example of insulting the person that he owed his expense to write his death. and most recent appointment was barack obama's special envoy to afghanistan and pakistan not his military contributor kind of going to herself says that holbrooke's passing gives the us at rush hour unique chance now of starting to work together on the eradication of opium groves in afghanistan. he wiped out the whole generation of american politicians and generals and diplomats and ambassadors who were taking the active stance to be the focus on education in afghanistan after richard holbrooke came in made a complete overhaul of u.s. policy from counter narcotics to. effectively promoting the u.s.

pows is that the u.s. drug store policy in afghanistan leading loose all the skin kings and drug lords that's resulted in effect. of the criminal drug trafficking in afghanistan keep personae fight the trail of the historical u.s. counter-narcotics approach in afghanistan just for the benefit of the leap service preventing their so-called friendly farmers from going to tell about the united states or the drug enforcement administration together with the state department have by default a unique opportunity to reset and jump start the russian american cooperation specific. on that counternarcotics with the main focus on their education because the reason no other alternative and the reason no other personalities in the white house who was opposing richard holbrooke

a couple of news stories violence erupted on the streets of rome tens of thousands of anti-government demonstrators protested against silvio berlusconi success in winning the lower house complete. police study used tear gas to try to stop the angry crowd clashing with these the prime minister now released. three votes the decision came up to put isco you'd already gained the necessary support in the upper house critics say mr berlusconi support has been weakened after a series of scandals and budget cuts to fire the clothing factory near the capital of bangladesh has killed at least twenty five people injured over one hundred witnesses said the blaze broke out on the top two floors of the building at lunchtime when most were. soldiers from a nearby military district helped in the rescue operation the investigation into the cause of the fire is on the way. the next space rocket now stands poised for wednesday's blast off russian soyuz will take a crew three

a russian an american and an italian on the twenty six it is now mission to the international space station artie's people all over reports on the rockets journey to its launch site in kazakhstan. hereward baikonur the final preparations underway ahead of the launch of the soyuz t.m.a. twenty rockets which will carry cosmonaut to meet to be called and astronauts paolo nespoli and katherine coleman up to the international space station for the rocket has received a blessing from a priest from the russian orthodox church in line with tradition here at baikonur that's not the only tradition they have many many traditions and superstitions if you will to be carried out before the launch one of those traditions as that the astronauts and cosmonauts visit the cosmonaut museum here and by can also they get to look at what those who have gone before them did they brought back from space while they're at the course not museum they also sign a board with the picture of the soyuz t.m.a. rocket on it and write a little message of a memory of what they were about to do with this mission now there's been plenty of

former astronauts and cosmonauts say it's a lend their support to the mission crew. and don't matter what the weather is it doesn't matter what you know it's just a very robust strong system that can withstand just about anything nature can throw at it and you know it's been flying since the sixty's was a rare exception or so every time and some of those who have been up there before say it's those little things that can make life hard when you're up in space i think probably the biggest challenge for me you know i think it sounds kind of trivial but it was the lack of variety of the food after you know you know one month it's ok two months it's ok and then you know three months you know exactly how many brownies are in the desert have been you know exactly how many heaters are in the meat. because it's all the same so that's how it's looking here at the moment in baikonur the coast minolta astronauts are currently tucked away so they can catch any sniffles colds or coughs it's very cold here in baikonur of course

they if they do get sick they can be pulled from the mission and the whole team of . coleman would be removed from the mission and replaced with the backup crew so that. desperately trying to make sure that that doesn't happen they're all tucked up nice and warm and that's how it looks at the baikonur cosmodrome peter all of a bike and. now of course we let you know how they get on as well on this station business coming up in about a minutes time. in some petersburg all she's available in hotels a story. ambassador really sensible to go tell the truth palace hotel a true sport hotel called new golden. gate.

and you see it on this column if you visit your. business precious metals of gain for a second day during the russian trading session as investors look for protection from the tumbling dollar the federal reserve is due to meet discussed interest rates and a second round of quantitative easing q e two as it's become known is intended to boost economic growth by increasing the amount of money available to banks but investors fear the injection of billions of extra dollars into the market will bring inflation gold has gone back over fourteen hundred dollars an ounce in the last few hours the prices jumped by nearly a third this year and is heading for its tenth straight year of growth the price of silver is also on the rise more street has settled higher after

a better than expected rise in u.s. retail sales for november by was no exception however it shares slumped over six percent after the retailer unveiled lower profits. overall the european stock markets they're mixed as investors cash in yesterday's metal stock gains. and lawmen other top losers in london down over three percent this hour from russian markets have ended a second day in the black my six had a late surge to go back over sixteen hundred points. predict the topsy turvy week for the index gazprom swung into the black off the early losses to close the percent higher today investors were encouraged by the meeting between company head alexei miller and they think that will lift ties with a key transit state to europe. little mages rosneft and luko fell as the price of light sweet hold on the eighty nine dollars a barrel. much as big as mine an oil slick hole has sold its entire stake in u.s. metals company stillwater nor nickel sold thirty seven million stillwater shares to

the public at nineteen dollars fifty and the remaining nine million to u.b.s. securities the russian mining giant had said it was selling its shares to focus on corporations to keep the peace as only invest three hundred million dollars next year in russia's joint u. mo peninsula the energy firm will spend two thirds of the budget on development of the risk fields and fields of its gas subsidiary rules the investment budget is part of the company's earlier announced ambitious plans to double production within a decade. now the world's biggest retailer wal-mart is leaving russia wal-mart has long been trying to buy its way into the market but says it's failed to find enough attractive targets the company has closed its moscow office saying there was no reason to remain despite its continued interest in russia is the second big international retailer to leave the country this year of the france's call for folks to make its business profitable and while this may be bad for russian

shoppers and the say it's probably good news for domestic retailers. it's still closed for the. retail companies since it basically eliminates potential but still very large compared to all the concerns about large buter. exiting the market on ground in my view because none of the russian retailers the public wants. or right now at least at the prices that mart is offering. and prices in russia next year may go up faster than expected the central bank is concerned the poor harvest will push up the cost of food and therefore inflation above the official target of six and a half percent as if to prove the point the price of buckwheat staple of the russian diet has jumped almost a third in the last week alone buckwheat is currently selling in the shops at one hundred rubles per kilo which is roughly the same as for some meats. that's the

latest you can find more stories on our website at www dot com slash business. the for.

news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada from china to corporations are all. the big. in india. we go to the grand imperial. closely.

treat. this is our. top story no christmas break for the u.s. senate. republican support for one of. the biggest deal between russia. and france. the russian. side of the story to us. now programs continue up next the second part of our special report the lives of

four men working. in a smuggling hotspot. planes are still flying over the border area inhabitants should have accurate and not approach to bombing so. why are you at home. you didn't you hear the explosions going to the didn't. miss house my brother didn't hear anything. there's nothing in this area. oh. it's exploding here solid team it's ok don't be scared that's a house that's just being bombed it makes that sound. don't be afraid to. stop the car horn.