nuclear arsenal but did not affect the main body of the treaty the deal was signed in april by the presidents of the candidate and obama that scottish account reports it's being hailed as a major diplomatic victory. the vote. on this man on this resolution are seventy one days twenty six nays two thirds of the senate president having voted in 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 i am 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 over the next ten years the countries will cut

their nuclear arsenals by a third down to some fifteen hundred fifty deployed warheads on each side 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 us 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 us 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 we 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 the 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 of the treaty has received on many levels a number of republican senators in the early sabotage that their actions provoked an avalanche of criticism from the country's top six. already 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 on substantial ones like we don't have to have this treaty if we don't have a nuclear treaty with the u.k. and one 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 you know they wanted to take out the line in the preamble which makes the connection between offensive and defensive weapons start straitjackets 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 started to stir up make the us weaker the treaty itself explicitly says either side can pull out of it if at some point they deem it threatens their national security and 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 in russia the outcome of the vote in the u.s. senate has been well come from many in moscow it's a signal that the u.s. and russia can now open a new page of cooperation with the melodious president obama did a really good job under rather difficult conditions if he managed to get the senior contributor who's been the senate leader and security for the next few years will be only street and in general i can say that it's easily me to work with president obama it's of police he can really listen and he is not impeded by stereotypes and what is probably the most important thing for politicians which is he keeps his promises. russian lawmakers made it clear they had no objections to the treaty 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. good to have considerably fewer weapons of mass destruction and on the other hand two nuclear superpowers

former adversaries actually trusting each other and looking to work hand in hand to provide their security going to check on our team washington d.c. . and moscow has repeatedly said that it could quit the start treaty if it feels of threatened by the u.s. missile defense plan for you or the connection remains key for russia and some experts believe the country's lawmakers are keen to stress this again. unilateral suggestions the parliament's resolution will follow the line of the preamble of the document and they will stipulate to the facts of the linkage between the offensive and defensive weapons that with nuclear weapons a missile defense system basically and second i think the russian parliament will repeat perhaps more strictly. the context of the russian unilateral statements that was published by the russian foreign ministry or on the date of signing the treaty in prague. or might consider pulling out from the new

start treaty if it considers if the development of u.s. missile defense system reaches the level that russia will interpret as the threats . and north korean soldiers who reportedly took part in the shelling of a south korean island last month sept young gang was provoked by seoul's war games as the first time northern troops have spoken publicly about the violence they appeared in a talk show and state television marking nineteen years as the country's top military commander has the anniversary pyongyang was warned it would launch want to call the sacred nuclear war again so while the south's president promised retaliation if attacked last month north korea shelled the south island of young pianka killing four people in response to seoul's the drills in the area analysts warn more military exercises would risk disturb the already precarious balance on the peninsula. 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 established by the south koreans along the northern limit line which is not recognized even by the united states. the recent shelling of the of the island. was consequent upon the south koreans intruding into what the north koreans consider through their waters the dangerous escalation what you hide is sized to. in maneuvers. 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 i. think their readiness for for future for a future attack or military adventurism 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 which is something we need that we need to be concerned about for the future but we need to see is some gestures from either side to try and step a maybe an offer from the north koreans for example to give up their their fuel rods from the yongbyon 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 week the brother of the late polish president killed in a plane crash in russia has claimed the body buried in krakow does not belong to lech kaczynski. is not yet announced whether he will ask for the remains to be examined moscow was startled by the comments as a polish side had been involved in all stages of the identification last week or so rejected the results of russia's investigation into april's plane crash the report concluded the pilot error was among the main causes of the accident that killed all the nice six people on board the jet polish prime minister has called the findings

delivered by russia unacceptable and the report has not yet been made public aviation expert says the russian investigation was thorough and no further international inquiry is immediate. i think the key issue for the polar side is probably quite a significant amount of criticism of the polish air force and in particular the captain of the aircraft and his copilot operating that aircraft on the day of that tragic accident and i think that's primarily major cause for concern and what we'll see you soon with the draft report which we passed on to publish got i've looked at 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 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 fog not enough visibility and a lot of pressure being brought on the pilots conspired to cause that accident. so the gunmen are not being heard. she's. hearing impaired people in russia are calling for the or sign language to be officially recognized point out more in just

a few minutes here in r t. y bombshell anna chapman becomes a government bad role model for russian youngsters. one of moscow's main airports has suspended all flights after electricity went off in the whole complex do power cables icing up airport have been experiencing energy fluctuations for several hours before the substations powering it were disconnected roads and cars in the capital are covered with ice and rain started on saturday froze solid several districts in the last region also been left without power city authorities are urging people to stay at. iran will decide next week whether to sever diplomatic relations with the u.k. these lawmakers publics lawmakers voted for tehran to cut all ties after the british ambassador to the country criticized its human rights record this week iran saw the commons as interference in its internal affairs relations between the two

countries have deteriorated since the rons claimed british intelligence was involved in the assassination of a top iranian nuclear scientist last month but the london based journalist of on ridley says when it comes to basic freedoms the u.k.'s own record is far from perfect. the politicians in iran are quite angry and outraged at this very undiplomatic. blog which is being produced from the british embassy in tehran and you know you wonder what's coming next when you take the high moral ground criticize one country's human rights you should be pretty blameless yourself and unfortunately britain's own human rights record leaves a lot to be desired if you're going to throw stones at someone else's house you should make sure that your own is in order first iran has its many supporters and it has its money to truck to us and. they everybody lines up to their particular.

record breaking billion dollar military deals and high tackling cops are just some of the result of me trying to get us a visit to india this week the russian president also sealed agreements on nuclear power to meet the growing needs of the world's second most populous nation our current saying was following the leader strip in financial crisis that shaken the politicians and economists worldwide a question who really can do. dominated by the us europe is being left behind by the new rising giants russia india china and the instructor . during the summit between russia and india. recently we've done a lot to promote partnership between russia and india but yesterday i spent a whole day in new delhi and we hold talks we prepared and signed

a number of documents on cooperation between our countries. yet in india russia is seen as a more friendly it is india's number one supplier offering it cutting edge weaponry such as beans and money. and now the countries of signing the biggest ever defense contract and he gets history thank you what billions of dollars and talking is a deal to jointly develop a fifth generation fighter aircraft costing nearly one million dollars apiece the jack will be able to compete with the american if you do raptor that costs three times as much at present the u.s. is the only country in such technology which is. even with. the new aircraft developed by russia and india would have steps teachers and noble for the ripley to be built for their forces energy is another sector the two countries are they stick together russia has agreed to build more nuclear power stations for

india to do atomic plants it's already building the country will come online next year and provide much needed energy for india's growing economy i am particularly glad that real. time cooperation. and gas sector it reflects the complementarities with. the strength of the interaction relationship is is that it often does an alternative to the relationships that countries have with the west you know we can offer alternative ways of thinking on on various things whether it's on climate change whether it's on science and technology it's on space with the financial or people we've been witnessing the vising economies are being seen as the corner store of the new world order and as we enter the next decade of the

twenty first century both russia and india are embarking on the. in the strategic partnership god and seeing are. and you can always find more stories on our website r.t. dot com but here's just a quick look at what's on the line right now. and way to escape we'll take a look at average to rehab forte to get us to answer more than one million heroin addicts. and russian prime minister what you were put into time off for wrestling with diplomatic issues to just wrestle watch the judo blackbelt give a master class at a scene that is purposeful. china says it's taken concrete action to help struggling european economies combat the financial crisis at an economic forum in beijing the country's vice premier praised the e.u.'s efforts to reduce debt china said i wouldn't reduce its holdings of european bonds but economist marco pierre for policy says regime support is not a permanent for amity this extends china's political influence in

europe by making a lot of european states dependent on china to buy to buy their debt but it doesn't get away from the fundamental problem in europe europe has a big big sovereign debt crisis and they seize if you like a patch to try and help the situation until the europeans managed to put together some some proper reforms some proper fundamental structures to help the euro stay together moving forward and to date they've been very much dragging their heels in and patching up greece and ireland rather than coming to the table to put together fundamental reform of how the euro actually operates. u.s. investigators have slammed the paragon of department of state for knowingly allowing shady jet fuel deals for an american air base in the central asian

republic of kyrgyzstan the report released on tuesday showed fuel worth nearly two billion dollars was purchased from russia for civilian use allegedly to avoid higher tariffs it was then shipped to the manasseh air base which is a key supply hub for the u.s. led campaign in afghanistan. eurasia democracy they should have the deals were a factor in sparking the unrest that ousted former president bakiev in april. the congressional subcommittee on national security and foreign affairs. dealt with in the report was allegations of corrupt dealings between the subsidiaries of the pentagon which were supplying fuel. to prosecute the war effort in afghanistan and members of the family of the deposed former president of bed but key of the same report stated that these subsidiaries namely the mena corps and red star back in

two thousand and nine tempted to reach out to the former president's saw on the scene but has subsequently followed his father in exile and is now in hiding in the u.k. to try to engage in bad door negotiations with the pentagon regarding the future of the base following through the stands announcement that it would shut down the base so what we saw in that case was another proof of the fact that the president's family song was calling all the shots in the country for the most one of the places what would eventually happen was the direct result of this relationship we saw what it was. where and president was ousted was the direct result of the popular anger that was stirred by the complete lack of accountability lack of transparency in the deals that the pentagon was cutting with. their government. well some take a look at some other stories from around the world and violence following ivory so

disputed presidential election has forced some fourteen thousand people to flee to neighboring liberia at least one hundred seventy people have been killed in clashes so far most of those fleeing are supporters of opposition leader satara whom the u.n. has recognized as the winner and comic leader babo is refusing to quit. for a venezuelan president carlos andras paris has died of a heart attack at the age of eighty eight he was in hospital in florida paris nationalize the oil industry and survived two coup attempts but well smiley ford from office was the first latin american leader to be convicted of corruption and illicit richmond. an indian rocket carrying a communications satellite has exploded just minutes after its launch party officials say an error caused it to adopt a goal that intended and break up its second space launch failure this year

a similar rocket developed a fault in a. daft people in russia once they are means of communication to be accorded official status sign language is not recognised in the country although it has more than ten million hearing impaired people. reports on their struggle. that. was our feeling alex econ to hear the song. from the family. yet he sings it with his hands touching the to have a lot of time that i am found he tells me he speaks the most beautiful language in the world. and so despite living in the world of silence aleksey and his fellow the foremost

put on a show full of life and music our. audience appreciates this theatre of deaf actors is an exception in the world mostly cos talking to those speaking with their hands. even the language doesn't officially exist all previous attempts to possible giving official recognition to the russian sign language have failed the problem dates back more than seventy years when sign language was banned from soviet schools in one nine hundred fifty stalin made the situation even worse by calling it not even as solid a plan which unlike what some might think it's not a primitive way of conveying basic information it's a fully fledged language capable of expressing just about anything more.

gracious lydia. the head of the old russian federation of the deaf believes there are more than ten million hard of hearing people in the country but no interpreters no t.v. channels almost nothing to ease their interaction with the world that's. he's one of four children feel the deaf one in the family room. this is the first beauty shop for the hard of hearing and has stopped into a protest.

they may not hear but there are no commute and the love told. us. i. guess. all true those who call in all the same people it may be just that the music of the hearts and so is louder but still not allowed enough to be officially recognized. was. released obama are to.

russia's flame haired former agent on a chapman is making a new foray into political life and this time as a leader of the ruling united russia party as a youth movement at a recent meeting chapman made a speech calling on party members to transform a future for the next generation out of chapman shot to fame during a spy scandal between russia and the u.s. in the summer. when the f.b.i. uncovered a russian espionage ring she was one of a number of agents the ported from the us a cold war style swap he. brings up here in our team find out what it takes me a good american soldier in part two of our special report by after top stories in just a few moments. that

are killing innocents here a was a base of course and that's never absent. some assault from the skull still. i think of it every day. but still the flashbacks trouble to memories. so much so that long time the surprise. i was afraid. i was ashamed that i. i was ashamed that i had to make sure.

i got my go my way. and then my. car would be out in all those of our ports. that i believe what i was going towards or i think. always a good. soldier on the other side and i think i'm just an. official. from the. video. comes and feeds.

on the. first. welcome back you're watching live from moscow here's a look at the top stories of the week the historic arms reduction deal between russia and the u.s. goes ahead of both countries the lower house of russia's parliament voted to give initial approval to the agreement on friday after it was approved for ratification by the u.s. senate a few days earlier. tantrums flying high on the korean peninsula as pyongyang threatens a sacred nuclear war. games speaking on state t.v.

the north troops have accused the south of provoking them into attacking the young and last month. or so questions russia's findings in a plane crash which killed the former polish president and ninety five other people the labor leader is brother claims the body. doesn't belong to but experts say moscow has conducted a thorough investigation. up next we follow the journeys of five veterans of american wars to talk about why really means to fide for your country. there was one particular incident. i wish i could take. we went into an area near the stadium.