apollo's presidents made video and obama when they were meeting in april this year to sit down and to seal the deal with the signatures agreed that would it be cation new start would be synchronized so the vote was more about america's credibility abroad as president would it assured his overseas partner about as far as russia lawmakers are concerned they were ready five new start immediately after it was clear that the u.s. senate voted in favor of it while last minute the u.s. senate insisted that additional read it became protocol would if cation resolution is included in the in the main treaty and of course the russian side will now have to consider to study the document we expect that the script of these resolution might. be received by the state duma any minute now and the vote to ready for a new start to start as early as tomorrow in the lower chamber of the russian follow months and weeks that the document will be passed over to the federation

council next week or the first days after the new year all the days in russia russian foreign ministry today said that they. applauded the decision by the us senate to approve such a crucial document and of course it was a tremendous victory for both sides for look at the good of this because you don't you see you know as the president agreed ratification will be synchronized we have passed all the hearings in the committees of the state duma and federation council the foreign ministry has kept lawmakers informed on the senate plans for its ratification resolutions this is very important because each text depends what wording our legislators will use in the russian ratification law although we are aware of the contents of the u.s. resolution we still don't have the official text but in any case we're ready to consider it a soon as the state duma session is called to use. america's senators come down moscow and say that these resolution is. more of

a political manifesto to calm down republicans who largely oppose the treaty and who wanted to make sure that these resolution for a season additional additional financial. financial support to more denies me celtic fans to make sure that the u.s. defensive capabilities on north affected by new treaty and rock obama did everything but promised in his twenty twelve billion dollar a ten year plan now many of the senate republicans have been stalling in trying to amend the document and debate it into submission why did these efforts ultimately fail. well the wait for the new start indeed had been a long time coming and republicans and democrats had been blaming each other for getting to this last minute crush the treaty was signed in april and ever since it had been this lengthy process already became in the united states they said they were jammed they were pushed around by the russians that russians made some take it

or leave it kind of statements and they wouldn't sign ready for a new treaty simply because of that and democrats pushed back and said look the treaty has been on for for more than two years now and the script of this treaty was time to finally ready for eyes and the russian side has been saying that there are no winners or losers that both sides come out as winners of course the result that the treaty has been finally possible by the u.s. senate is a is a culmination of intense telephone face to face conversations by the two presidents and of course talks by the delegations on both sides. to the fact that the senate has been working on the treaty is ratification so long and so far only means that there is still some of the votes are relevant and can now be questioned by anyone the american right if occasion took place despite all the speculation surrounding the procedure which was based exclusively on the interests of domestic politics it's great that an obsolete majority of the senate including

a major group of republican senators decided to rise above party interests and if it was best for the united states and in this case in global interests. do that now seems that the united states and russia do not view that nuclear weapons as a security asset but rather as a liability and now the question is will everyone else follow the vast machine will nuclear war is still with us said the question is whether these two major nuclear superpower us will not only reduce their stockpiles but will also face a. money to solve such a problem has stalled this writing all nuclear technology worldwide for war and hollowing the way had been for most and washington to push these law just reset button and that relations here was the voice of our team correspondent in washington then a check out. the vote. on this matter on this sort of

resolution are seventy one days twenty six nays two thirds the senate president having voted the affirmative the resolution of ratification is agreed to. and with this approval russian the us will start the new year with a treaty that has become a symbol of trust and cooperation between the two nuclear superpowers and glad the democrats and republicans came together to approve my top national security priority for this session of congress the new start treaty. this is the most significant arms control agreement in nearly two decades and it will make us safer and reduce our nuclear arsenals along with russia both states have some very significant reductions underway the countries will cut their nuclear arsenals by a third down to some fifteen hundred fifty deployed warheads on each signed the deal also limits the number of delivery vehicles and launchers but even with those cuts both russia and the u.s.

will still hold more than ninety percent of the world's nuclear weapons so many agree that the value of the new arms reduction treaty is not just in reductions but i think it's also important to say that the significance of the treaty is much larger than the implications for arms control it really does give a lot of momentum and boost to the broader u.s. russia reset and i think puts obama and medvedev on course to cooperate more closely on a whole host of issues and it may well be that this is seen as a turning point in which the russia u.s. rivalry of the past is finally laid to rest for weeks and months the president of the united states all members of his administration the military all living former secretary of state and of defense were calling for senators not to ruin this reset opportunity for us who are sure relations and the message did resonate with many senators every senator knows when you're trying to get things done relationships matter and the relationship between the united states and russia has been critical

since we fought together in world war two and will be contin and will continue to be so this is an on parallel opportunity to enhance that relationship and to say by signature and by ratification of this treaty that yes the united states of america wants to work with russia despite the huge support the treaty has received on many levels. a number of republican senators nearly sabotaged it their actions provoked an avalanche of criticism from the country's top security experts who feared that the treaty could become a victim of political games on capitol hill the arguments the treaty adversaries brought up on the hearings ranged from there's no earthly way to do all of this within the time that we have to even more unsubstantial ones like we don't have to have this treaty if we don't have a nuclear treaty with the u.k.

anglin we don't have one with france in the final days of debates on start some republican senators trying to rewrite the deal which would have actually killed it they wanted to take out the line in the preamble which makes the connection between offensive and defensive weapons stuart straight jackets the united states missile defense capabilities but all of those from the military who testified before the senate said the connection between offensive and defensive weapons is obvious they also maintained it's not start that would make the u.s. weaker the treaty itself explicitly says either side can pull out of it if at some point they deem it threatens their national security for russians this new start is about balance and equality and they will be in it as long as the u.s. respects that balance if the conditions in the ratification resolution don't change the text of the treaty we should be able to approve it as soon as tomorrow or in

russia the outcome of the vote in the u.s. senate has been welcomed from many in moscow it's a signal that the u.s. and russia can now open a new page of cooperation russian lawmakers made it clear they had no objections to the treaty and would pass it as soon as the u.s. did advocates of the treaty see the outcome of the vote not so much as obama's victory but a victory for the whole world which on the one hand is going to have considerably fewer weapons of mass destruction and on the other hand two nuclear superpowers for additives. areas actually trusting each other and looking to work and hands to provide their security get a check on r.t.e. washington d.c. . we've just gotten word here on r t that the russian side has received the approved text of the start treaty from washington and now can move forward with ratification on this side of the atlantic on more offer more on this now for we get a response from jeremy corbyn an opposition labor m.p. and longtime supporter of the campaign for nuclear disarmament he joins us live

from london hello there have you with us so the treaty can the treaty work for the benefit of both russia and the united states. yes it is it's a very welcome treaty and i think it's a good end of the year and it's good that president obama managed to get it through the senate yesterday and as we understand it the russian parliamentary system is going to give a similar approval today is good news but i just have this. despair in the way that to all these years were able to negotiate down the number of nuclear warheads combi really resolved to get rid of nuclear weapons all together. leaders in russia and the us are constantly underlining its importance and not only in rebuilding their relations but for the whole world as well is this treaty enough to spur other nations to make similar moves in drawing down their weapons to bring us towards this idea that you talked about of global zero. yes it is because it's such a huge step and it's one that was predicted to end in failure and so the fact that

president obama and president medvedev come to the agreement and got it through both of their parliamentary systems is a huge step forward and that's got to be a spur so surely the next thing is for all nations to agree not to renew their nuclear weapon systems because most preparing some kind of upgrade or some kind of renewal and then move on to a nuclear weapons convention that can include all nations in the world including those that are not signatories to nuclear nonproliferation treaty particularly israel india pakistan north korea and how about the other established nevers of the nuclear club france and britain do you think it would do well for them to enter into a tree like this. absolutely in the case of britain the number of nuclear warheads has been significantly reduced but the government is spending a great deal of money on preparations for the replacement of the trident nuclear missile system after two thousand and fifteen and i think it would do well if

britain joined in the general trend and said that we are not going to renew the tried nuclear missile system instead we're going to go forward to look for look for a world free of nuclear weapons and in turn hear some of the wires that you had mentioned how much of a difference can this make to those countries that could be stepping up nuclear capabilities such as enron such as north korea. what it surely must be a very important message to all of them that if russia and the united states can come to such an enormous and significant agreement then does it make sense that they hold large nuclear arsenals and at the moment don't show any signs of particularly reducing violence but it also must be a message to both north korea and iran that if you join in disarmament join in milne development of nuclear weapons and i do not believe iran has nuclear weapons and i don't think iran should get nuclear weapons or indeed anybody else should get nuclear weapons but surely it has to be encouragement that it is possible to live

in a secure world without nuclear weapons very good jeremy corbyn opposition labor m.p. and long time supporter of the campaign for nuclear disarmament thanks for joining us. we'll bring you more analysis of the start treaty approval in the u.s. from leading experts throughout the day and we're also across the story online where you can get your reaction at our team dot com also on the web site right now prime minister putin shows young judo trainees that you can't beat a black belt even at fifty eight as he takes it to the mat in st petersburg to show them how it's done. and added chapman moves from being a world renowned sexy spy to a leading role in russia's next generation politics all the details online at r.t. dot com.

north korea says it's ready to use its nuclear deterrent in what it calls a quote sacred war against the south the north defense minister a statement was reported by state media the minister accused soul of deliberately stoking tension by staging successive joint military drills with the us next to the north territory he said the latest exercise one of the largest in the south history was a right preparation for an attack on pyongyang a maneuver is involved heavy military machinery fighter jets missile launchers and hundreds of troops and was held just thirty kilometers from the north korean border the series of war games comes in the wake of recent cross a border artillery exchange that killed four south koreans let's get some more insight on this from glen ford a former british parliament member and author of the book north korea on the brink a struggle for survival good to have you with or so the north issue strongly worded statements very regularly how likely do you think this thread's. well i mean i

think. in the next sort of few days things are fine the danger is if we have new military exercises at sea because the problem is the land borders very clear the sea border is been arbitrarily and unilaterally stopped by the south koreans along the northern limit line which is not recognized even by the united states and the the recent shelling of the of the island. was called squanto poem the south koreans intruding into what the north koreans considered to be their waters so it's basically a maritime boundary dispute these is likely to trigger things and in my view the these military this military training on land. has clearly two sides to this whole thing what about the south koreans were on this do you think they're being deliberately provocative. well i i mean this is the dangerous escalation what you hobbes sized korean maneuvers which in disputed waters which led to the north

korean response of. the artillery shelling of the island we've now seen massive joint u.s. south korean exercises which clearly are leading to the north koreans upping their . upping their readiness for for future for a future attack or military adventurism it seems to be a lot of saber rattling right now repeated warnings from the north continued war games in the south in this ever be resolved or do you think things have gone maybe too far. well i mean the danger is that somebody makes a mistake and what's happening is that both sides are escalating the rhetoric and if you want the preparation for military action i don't think anyone's intending to start if you want a full scale war at this point but the danger with escalation is it gets out of control so if we see something we need that we need to be concerned about for the future. and a worst case scenario if a quote sacred war begins who do you think is going to get involved. oh wow i mean

i think in terms of the bottles it will clearly be science in north korea with the americans assisting and less with troops than with if you want naval and air force components that will try early on to take out a north korean nuclear facilities and possibly the north korean leadership. and i suspect that in terms of winning a conventional war the the the americans the south koreans opposed to the japanese have got forty times more weapons potential than the north korea i don't see the chinese joining in so it would be an easy military win for the sides but i think maybe a longer term of it out enormous cost the estimate is a million people could die it's not a career in this seven day war so it's. it's it's a what we call in a pyrrhic victory it's a victory at enormous cost to be a victory when almost cost what we need to see is some gestures from either side to

try and stop the stop on a maybe an offer from the north koreans for example could give up their their fuel rods from the young real nuclear reactor and try and ship them to the scientists will be something that might be allowed us to start scaling down the current levels of tension and this threat of korean nuclear war comes just as russia and us are finalizing cutting their atomic weapons to store close with this new start treaty is the nuclear free world ideal of being further away through this. well i share peoples to susie essman for a nuclear free world i don't see it happening very short in the near future we have to get this into context i think one tritone one us tried the submarine house thirty thousand times and you took apostasy of the whole of north korea so if he's if it's tit for tat there's a lot more american when you clear weapons have to go before the north koreans get rid of their first all right we'll leave it there glen ford a former british e.u.

parliament member and author of the book north korea on the brink struggle surfer for survival thanks for a perspective. thank you. one time leprosy struck fear because it meant a slow death but today it's both treatable and curable you have a russians diagnosed with a disease there is another problem to overcome. by society our. reports on those living with the condition and the stigma. lost amid vast families russia's older slap a village has no streets all in one but houses with its own fire brigade ambulance service and kindergarten it's a home for many people affected by leprosy away from the eyes of a public world little understanding of the disease when the first patients arrived they have to know they were packed into just one house but now there is this a building big enough to house two families given the patients more privacy and

dignity by larry like the vast majority of people in terrorist he has been cured he could leave but says it's not the efforts of the disease which made him stay but people's reaction who do know the road sometimes is like a man in the snake you see a snake and it frightens me someone who knows the snake a snake catcher is not afraid he knows which ones bite and which is dying and how the binds of the snakes don't just wind out of the blue the same with letters if you hear this word you get it once you know would swartz is different. most people's knowledge of the disease comes from engine bible stories if you realize that they're most likely immune or that after treatment for myself or is a no longer infectious in any case the condition is extremely rare. it's that ignorance which stops many of the residents of tara ski feel unwelcome in the outside world. most of all saw killed too but where will we go there were many

cases when people were discharged and they got on ok until the neighbors found out about their disease and. we don't want to leave next door to the so and so. we've got kids who sometimes cure leprosy and few patients have to move mounts to laser nobody knows that. but a very vital no was among the first to receive them all to drug therapy for leprosy and the you were ceasar in many ways she was lucky to be treated at all at a time when diagnosis was hard the telltale patch on her food was missed by most doctors. but i'm going to look at my hands it's rugs i did this and the who are all the time and brine in the cooled barbara found her killing terrorists can sure also find a husband and their wife it offered her and many others the chance of a relatively normal existence you know it's hope centers like these will no longer be needed in the last decade they have been hardly any new cases of leprosy in

russia however doctors say the reason need to keep institutions open even if they're virtually empty. if we don't leave any signs how what where and why it will be very difficult for men kind to start combat in leprosy all over again it's possible that one day due to poor living conditions and things like that the pandemic will return. for now those still live in interest no longer need a medical care but a change in attitude in the outside world a society where people care and don't stare. what r.t.e. staff are full of original. turned out of some other stories making headlines across the globe for our president or teva dela has been sentenced to life in prison or. crimes against humanity in general was convicted of murdering dissidents during the country's military rule of between one hundred seventy six and one thousand nine hundred three up to thirty thousand people were tortured and killed

during what's known as argentina's dirty war or he was first sentence to life in one thousand nine hundred five but had been given special privileges which are now revoked. iran's president is in turkey to bolster ties with his neighbor and get support for the nuclear program mahmoud ahmadinejad has already met the turkish prime minister ahead of next month's major nuclear talks in istanbul get a garage agreement that was the only tangible result of the international negotiations in geneva earlier this month turkey is keen to play a leading regional stability role and had negotiated a nuclear deal for iran but it was rejected by the u.s. . melican joins us now with all the latest business news so there's a lot of arena as we look at a cost of basic foods in russia skyrocketed in two thousand and ten what particular products went up well maybe buckwheat and other basics like cabbage potato and grain they've all gone become twice more expensive ones now we'll get to that in a moment but first. the battle for control of russia's biggest mine annoyance neko

is likely to be over by the spring that's the view of the building of a new up a tiny an essential figure in the dispute with. speaking to the wall street journal the time insead normally killed twelve billion dollars after this month to buy back a twenty five percent stake was generous has now hired bankas merrill lynch to access the value of the stake. holder says he's willing to sell for the right price . now let's check out the markets european stocks mostly high in the last full trading session before the christmas holiday discount retailer metro is again one of the year's busiest shopping days to travel this top one in london as an alliance clear their flights backlog after the snow if you will chaos which. as in allied irish seventy percent of the irish government prepares to nationalize the debt laden back here in moscow yes in my eyes except reversed morning gains but trade is

extremely weak mainly vestas have already left for the holiday season and bucking the negative trend is burbank continues to gain after the strong profit forecast for next year m.t.s. is down for the second day after it announced losses from the suspension of its business in turkmenistan would be one hundred sixty million dollars. retail giant x five group is forecasting a forty percent increase in turnover next year the company says sales will be driven by. its newest acquisition of big discount stores it also aims to open over five hundred new stores but x five will also double its capital cost with much of the money spent on rebranding peco. now the cost of basic foods in russia skyrocketed in two thousand and ten to the severe drought in the summer and poor harvest pushed the prices well above the the official inflation figure buckwheat's that's a staple of the russian dinner table almost tripled while other centrals like cabbage

potato and grain nearly doubled the government has released grain reserves to control prices on thursday russia's agriculture minister called for zero tabs on grain to boost to boost imports she says they're doing everything they can to keep prices down. the first real sign of a mug in the main reason for such a dramatic increase in prices is the drought we see a massive jump in prices for potatoes and buckwheat retaking all possible measures to control the situation and the recent price rises in just speculate of growth the financial backing would given farmers has stabilized the market but yes it's a difficult situation. and that's the latest update i have for you but remember you can always buy one stories on a website that started out. hungry

for the full story we've got it first the biggest issues get a human voice face to face with the news makers on. it's the secret incursion into the country. it's the invasion by means of. tradition the language is a lame one that the first day beat the beat. and culture. the thing is that the have the dems are still unaware of what's going on in their

land they're still asking me why do you. like this i don't know anything about alaska they're great. on our team. four thirty pm in moscow good to have you with us here on our t.v. the easier headlines moscow prepares to ratify a new strategic arms reduction treaty with washington already approved by the u.s. senate the deal was praised by both sides as a problem new level of. peace on the edge north korea says it's ready to unleash a secret war on the south and use its nuclear deterrent angered by seoul's massive military drills right across the border. and living with leprosy russians in a remote village feel their battles no water with the disease but with the stigma

which society imposes on them. up next we look at iran's nuclear program and the concerns surrounding it stay with us here on r.t. . with me i have. a senior israeli military and intelligence analyst and author of the book the secret war with iran dr thank you very much for joining us here on r.t. most welcome so to cut to the chase is israel planning an attack on iran well i put it i would put it this way israel wouldn't like to attack israeli leaders understand the possible horrendous results of such an attack the possible into french of. possibly syria the clinton nation from europe the ballistic. anger.