april. morning developments on capitol hill. senators have voted to end the debate earlier today and we're finally moving on to. which is expected early in the early afternoon on wednesday and democrats are pretty sure that they do have the sixty seven votes needed to get the treaty ratified they need at least six to seven out of one hundred votes and here is what the chairman of the senate foreign relations committee said this would not have happened without bipartisanship and i'm very grateful to a number of senators will talk about that maybe a little more tomorrow on the other side who. decided that this was the moment for the national security interests of our country that this issue did not belong in our politics but rather in our minds terms of how we protect the nation while senator kerry also said that they do count on seventy votes approval he also said

that those seventy votes today in today's congress are like ninety five votes in the past you of course was referring to the past votes on the previous arms reduction treaty which received no laughs and. so much is at stake and yet the treaty has received so much opposition a number of republicans really went out of their way to undermine it what is interesting without having substantial arguments against it and their actions have provoked an avalanche of criticism from the country's top security experts we feared that the treaty could become a victim of political gains on capitol hill you know some republicans if they wanted to rewind to the language of the treaty which would have actually killed the treaty they wanted to take out this line in the preamble of the deal which states the fact of the connection between offensive and defensive weapons actually any security expert would tell you that the connection is obvious and in fact all those who. asked if i had all those from the military who testified in front of the

senate said exactly their ad and the military also maintained that it's not the new start treaty that would make the us if we currently are unable to defend itself in fact it explicitly says that other side can pull out of it if they deem it threatens their national security for russians this new start treaty is all about balance and equality and they've made it clear that they will be in it as long as the united states respects that balance you know if we look at the cuts part of the treaty we are some very significant reductions are on the way we're talking about both countries reducing their nuclear arsenals by on third down through some fifteen hundred fifty warheads the treaty will also limit the number of delivery vehicles and the launchers but even with those current cuts the two countries will still hold more than ninety percent of the walls nuclear weapons so many agree that the real battle you of this arms reduction treaty is not just in production but in

the trust and cooperation between the two nuclear superpowers that comes with it. and the president of the. jersey only believe that republicans have failed in that attempt to sing the start treaty. most of the opposition to this relatively modest treaty has been political the opposition what thought they could deliver a knockout blow to president obama they missed and he struck them down instead part of it is ideological there's about twelve to twenty senators in there caught in the senate that are just opposed to arms control treaties they're arguing to the bitter end but they are a minority there was missing what they were trying to run out the clock they kept making the argument we don't have time and then they started to be do these little mini filibusters around their amendments to prove they didn't have time they were waiting for something to happen that would tip the balance in fact what happened is that military officials talked to each senator they got calls from republican

secretary of defense bob gates from every clinton the secretary of state they got classified briefings and republican senator senators were reassured so you saw the moderate senators senators breaking from their own leadership this is actually an unprecedented split in the senate republican leadership we haven't seen anything like this all year where you going to lose ten to twelve senators are going to break with their own leadership to support this treaty that is in the national security interest. billion dollar deals military agreements and high tech link ups they're the results and to make sure it had its first day of a high profile visit to india the russian president also sealed a number of agreements and nuclear power aiming to satisfy growing energy demands in the wild second most populous nation of parenting has been following the meetings between the two countries and. they have been strategic partners for over a decade and have had very warm relations for several decades from the soviet times on works and what's what's giving more impetus now to the bilateral ties is the

growing economies of both countries both russia and india bric countries and economies are growing at a fast and one of the key areas that we've seen agreement signed to be over a dozen agreements signed today one of the key areas was energy oil and gas and also nuclear power india has a huge demand for energy it's growing at almost nine percent and i'm just two point five percent of its energy mix comes from nuclear energy it wants to increase just ten percent and sixty three thousand megawatts of nuclear energy is what it wants to lead in the next twenty years and russia is going to be a leading player in this russia is said to provide world class technology in. civil nuclear energy it will also build nuclear power stations for india it's currently building two in southern india and the agreement signed today will set out the roadmap for building two additional nuclear stations or nuclear power stations in

southern india and both leaders are quite clear that energy. are important in their relationship. russia is positive about energy cooperation in the future i told the prime minister today that india is a convenient partner in the energy field it applies not only to nuclear energy where we've achieved a lot in the past few years but also in the extraction of hydrocarbons. i am particularly. suspect it reflects the. defense ties between both countries is also very strong russia is india's largest weapons supply and most of india's weapons hardware comes from russia and of course before that from the soviet union the agreement signed today. is the joint development of the

fifth generation fighter aircraft this is this is the only one outside the united states which is in the air both sides will be equal partners and in this the development costs will be around ten billion dollars both sides will put in the money russia will develop the propulsion systems india will develop the avionics and the navigation software and the road map will be around two hundred fifty fighter aircraft of this model will be built for the russian air force and two hundred for the indian air force and the total contract will be worth a billion dollars it will be the backbone of air forces for decades to come so really we're seeing this way forward of. merely just buying off the shelf joint development of weaponry we've seen that with the bromo supersonic messiah and now with these with this particular fighter aircraft. russia's prime minister vladimir putin has met with representatives of the country's main football club's supporters

after a recent riots involving fans in moscow and st petersburg violence for the right wing nationalist demonstrations against ethnic minorities after spartak moscow fund was killed by rival fans and this month he gets in a gretsch over the details from that meeting. prime minister putin described the killing of football fan you go to city the first a tragedy targeting the entire community of russia's food bowl fans he set we should treat these as an attack against all of you regardless where you live your way and you are a nationality he said during his meeting with the representatives of football clubs in most he said he understood it well that emotions sometimes iran high as people supporting different football clubs try to settle scores up to matches but what happened in moscow last week was unacceptable he said and to the great peace he immunity against in a phobia and extremism which had existed in russia was saying true as is beginning

to we cannot he also reminded that this is manifesting itself during football matches it's a multi national sport and russia's strength you say isn't that it's a country consisting of people of different nationalities and that once young people forget about this the country will start simply falling apart it will shut down and will start degenerating he promised that those were sponsible for the killing of the sparta football fans will and behind bars and steal the cold of football fans to stay independent and to shrug off extremism justice as police would the current situation with russian fans is not that different to problems in other countries and europe in particular both here and there are various destructive elements tried to make their way into supporter clubs which we need to bring the clubs under their control and i'm talking about radicals and they don't do it for the sport they don't do it to support gun clubs they do it for their own selfish political reasons as to be must they want to destabilize the country so

that afterwards they can scream that they are the only ones that can save russia it would be a tragedy if we let that happen. on monday the investigative committee opened a criminal case against several officials who released three of the suspects linked to the killing of. to be read of the officials whose names rang son numbers have not been identified are investigated for criminal negligence investigators check whether they had personal interests in freeing the suspects and whether they did it on depression prime minister that it was unacceptable that those suspects were released the suspects who were linked to murder case that. the weaving of law enforcement should have been done without delay and these would have helped prevent street riots over the weekend in moscow and st petersburg over forty thousand people radical football fans that clashed with migrants and

police and. over a thousand people prime minister today the knowledge that the government did not respond properly to the killing all these parts and these triggered the disorders. are reporting there from moscow well you know we've got our c.n.n. still ahead controversy surrounds the apparent take of topics politicians of british and russian diplomats the shadowy knowledge turns over disputed all the details in just a couple of minutes. the brother of the late polish president killed in a plane crash in southwest russia has claimed the body buried in krakow does not belong to a chain ski former prime minister says he is not here decided whether he will ask for the remains to be but a polish political expert says that or that was a year also of kaczynski still carry some weight claims won't hinder moscow also relations. he is the leader of the political party with god there's about

twenty three to twenty five percent of the votes mainly all there may be may need traditional people maybe traditionally with some misgivings course earning russia as a neighbor so it is important about fondue point of view of the foreign policy and national relations it to say significant about not important it is very extravagant and even some leading members of the political party were very much surprised by the radical statement they didn't hear before he never before stated that actually that there is a problem. of the body or rather the president. so the fact that he actually said it openly you know the press conference was a shock to many and immediately the prosecutor general office. he eats the engagement with the possible of all the proceedings on the points site have stated very strongly that this is not the case that this is actually the border. wars

believe that we're broke for the better. and there were also rejected the findings of the investigation of the april plane crash the report concluded that pilot error was among the main causes of the fatal accident that killed ninety six the polish prime minister has called the findings an acceptable and groundless final crash report is expected to be released in january and aviation expert chris shays that the russian have to go forward and know if that international inquiry is needed. i've looked this issue since the accident and examined the cockpit voice recording transcripts and so on and i can't fault any of the conclusions that have been leaked by the russian authorities i don't believe personally that if we bring an international investigating team into the equation that the findings will be any different to

what they are which seems to be the pressure was brought to bear in some way shape or form on the pilots and copilots of the aircraft to make an attempt to land at an airport where there were no conditions at all to land too much for not enough visibility. a lot of pressure being brought on the pilots conspire to cause that accident. a monument to soldiers who gave their lives fighting fascism in world war two has been unveiled in moscow the project was conceived after a georgia woman more or less the city of good taste the last year prime minister vladimir putin and leaders from the georgian opposition attended the ceremony in the russian capital though both expressed hope that it will be the start of better relations between the two countries the new monument symbolizes the unity of the people and was chosen nationwide vote. britain's

foreign secretary says that russia and the u.k. have each expelled a diplomat from their embassies in a round of alleged spying william hague says a russian envoy was asked to leave britain two weeks ago after accusations of a span are surfaced and he claims that russia booted out a british official a week later lauren that reports now from london. william hague the foreign secretary wrote a letter to the house of commons explaining what had happened he said that britain had indeed expelled the diplomat from the russian embassy in london they requested that diplomats expulsion on december the tense after what hague is calling clear evidence of russian intelligence service activities acting against british interests here in london then we are also hearing of course from the other end that there was a tit for tat expulsion from the british embassy in moscow and in response to that expulsion from moscow william hague said that britain rejects any basis for that

particular action despite the fact that of course it was only a response to what the foreign office here had done well this of course is a huge embarrassment for the foreign secretary william hague who when he took office as recently as may this year said that he vowed to improve relations with moscow and he in fact went to moscow in november and met with president dmitri medvedev which is quite a rare occurrence for a lower official than the prime minister and then we're going to see the do a visit by david cameron the prime minister of the u.k. which is supposed to take place early next next year now whether that will affect the timing of that visit is obviously not clear yet we're not sure what the repercussions will be william hague the foreign secretary says that he still wants to have a co-operative and productive relationship with russia within the bounds of this country's laws we saw another tit for tat expulsion in two thousand and seven following the living and professor three diplomats were expelled from each side

then as well and that was in protest from the british side a russian refusal to extradite lugovoy to face trial in the u.k. he is of course britain's prime suspect in the murder of alexander litvinenko since then there has been attempts on various sides to push what they're calling the reset button in russia u.k. relations this could have. serious implications for that reset button and for more on this and all our stories go to our website at ati dot com and here's a taste of waterline for you right now so get all the details and which items made to the top of everyone's what i was told christmas wish list i should say for christmas russians are reportedly into electronic gadgets but not personal fitness according to recent poll. don't forget to check out our daily dose of the past and today we're exploring all three cosmonauts went on a record breaking trip to space exactly twenty three years ago find out all the details that teeth are called.

the u.s. the u.s. led coalition afghanistan is denying reports if extending its reach into neighboring pakistan but the new york times has quoted an anonymous american official as saying special forces should stop targeting militants across the border the u.s. has been teasing unmanned drones to strike suspected insurgency bases in pakistan often killing civilians in the process is not about calls that tonks a violent by lation its territorial sovereignty and jason mewes editor at antiwar dot com says pakistan and the you are partners but can't seem to coordinate with each other. well i think they've wanted to do so for quite some time but whether they can actually do so without completely discrediting the pakistani government is

another matter i don't think nato would necessarily deploy the troops against the pakistani government's wishes those are very governments very friendly to nato and i don't think they necessarily want to completely discredit him by going in against his will it seems like both sides could do a much better job of coordinating it seems so far. ar that the pakistani government regularly blames nato for the exact opposite when they clash with people along the border they flee into afghanistan and when nato clashes with them in afghanistan they flee into pakistan and it seems like it's such a long such a poorly controlled border that there's very little they can do about it particularly when they're not coordinating with one another. unless they're going to get some other news from around the world freezing temperatures and heavy snow to new to cause massive disruption across europe britain is badly affected with tens of thousands of travelers stranded and the government offering military

assistance to keep running many flights in and out of the u.k. have been grounded and travelers are likely to suffer for several more days and there are also airline cancellations in paris frankfurt and brussels and some rail companies are recommending passengers don't travel the you heavily criticized transportation agencies for failing to deal with this iteration same the situation could lead to a tie to every relation. israel has launched airstrikes against at least seven suspected militant sites in gaza wounding three palestinians israeli forces say the rocket squad targeted smuggling tunnels a hamas training center and a weapons factory the air raids come after more than a dozen rockets and mortars were launched across the border into israel this week. the rocky parliament has unanimously approved your government to be led by the current shiite prime minister nuri al maliki and in nine months of political

deadlock elections in march so no single political bloc win a majority leading to months of negotiating to form a government of national unity political stalemate threatens to store economic development and bringing new wave of sectarian violence to the country the new government includes all iraq's major political factions including shiites sunnis and kurds. up next in the workings of u.s. policy politics at state level have been under intense scrutiny since the latest we can leaks disclosures spoke to journalist and best selling author laura flanders for her take on american domestic and foreign policy.

parties sitting down with a broadcaster and best selling author laura flanders laura thank you very much for joining us tonight to be with you let's get right into it my first question to you is about it being over two years since barack obama has been elected as president and through your eyes which of his very ambitious promises hasn't kept well i mean i think he's kept the one which was he's going to try and i think that he has been trying but the change that he promised the hope that people had i think it's living on life support at this point because he started on such a high pedestal what do you think it means for him in the next presidential election i mean one of the challenges this administration has and this president

has is to keep in gauged space because it's only because of grassroots organizing the obama presidency ever came about so his biggest challenge i think these next two years is to try to keep them in some way engaged when he sold out most of the signature pledges that he made to them in two thousand and eight why is that is it because there were too many challenges well i mean it's a long list but i think you've got a very very troubled democracy in the united states where corporate influence is run amok and he came into office on the back of a lot of campaign contributions first and foremost from wall street so in some sense if he wants to get reelected and keep friendly with those that brought him into office on the financial side well then he's going to be nervous about chomping down on the hand that feeds and he's going to be nervous about abandoning some of those folks whose contributions he took you mentioned the hand that feeds. how do you describe the relationship between washington and wall street right now and well it's very complicated i mean barack obama received more money from wall street firms when he was running for office than any other candidate and yet he comes in

as the progressive candidate make sense of that i don't see how we can keep having elections when anonymous sources they don't even have to reveal who they are pouring billions of dollars as they did into this midterm race over four billion dollars almost as much as was spent on the presidential race in two thousand and eight into midterm races where little congresspeople who've never really had a fight for reelection suddenly found themselves up against a huge money machine that they couldn't fight back that's not democracy that's something else what about the money being pumped into defense is it essentially worth it to be spending billions and billions of dollars of dollars on warfare and . you know what or what are these efforts for well it's been very interesting in the wiki leaks documents that have been released over the last few weeks as we've seen the american power is evident not just in how many weapons this country has but in the pressure it's able to bear on just about every embassy

around the world to do its bidding the u.s. arms race to become by far the most weaponized nation on earth is an asset when it comes to the state department bullying other countries and undermining their democracy to get what they want you've seen tremendous power come to the united states but you've come to see i think the cost as our economy probables where does this kind of right to bully other countries stem from and why do other countries allow that to happen one of the you know i say about only really about powerful well i think the other i think other countries might be about to fight back in europe we're seeing a very big explosion of fury in spain and germany as the cables reveal the degree to which the state department has tried to bully those governments now another thing that many common americans might not be aware of is that the u.s. . involvement in afghanistan has actually now been longer than its involvement in the second world war and i'm sure many people when they hear this would say while that that means it's a really long time again to go back to these wiki leaks releases you've got the

bastard in pakistan telling the state department this is not working we're seeing an increase in taliban strength almost in almost all across afghanistan we're certainly seeing a growth in the mountainous regions between afghanistan and pakistan we are spending millions of dollars in pouring in aid into afghanistan and then we're seeing a great again according to these cables the vice president of afghanistan showing up in abu dhabi fifty two million dollars in some cases huge asset flight from an already devastated poor country of afghanistan i don't think the american population is going to stand for that the question is whether they get to hear about it they know they're not winning no nobody gets we mean in afghanistan the russians knew that the british knew that it's not an easy thing to win and when we pull out as pull out we will be unsatisfied there is a poll out recently which said that fifty seven percent of americans gallup polled don't trust the media anymore i mean what does that say to us a level of distrust that i think is very dangerous and we need some new

relationships between people and the politicians and yeah between people in that process laura flanders thank you very much for your time. discover it's. become. nature can give you. well the british. it's sometimes. hard to.

find out what's really happening to the global economy. headlines. the reports. come out again this is the headlines of. the debates. the u.s. senate finishes discussing the landmark deal with russia setting the stage for its possible ratification if possible to plunge the two countries deployed nuclear arsenals. secure a multi-billion dollar deals and a trip to new delhi by president better still the so-called bric nations cement

relations. trade and investment were just some of the agreements sealed. and prime minister putin. to be on the lookout for extremists saying russia kind of eliminated radicalism it follows the death of its supporter which prompted violent demonstrations between nationalists and groups from the corpuses region and also visited the grave. to pay his respects. plus a potent report into the plane crash that killed the polish president and ninety five other aviation experts say the russian probe was opened and fire meanwhile the late leader's brother who's the former prime minister of a country claims the wrong body was buried. as the headlines a special report now from the icy mountain tops of siberia that's coming up next. because now it's siberia.