voted in favor of the treaty and is likely to ratify it after a nuclear holiday the agreement will place further review before the final vote start will slash the deployed russian and u.s. nuclear arsenals by a third once ratified by both sides it was actually signed by the two presidents in april but the u.s. said it only approve the deal on wednesday after months of heated debate parties got a cheeky has been following the process. the vote. on this matter on this 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 u.s. 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 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 had received on many levels a number of republican senators nearly sabotaged it 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 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 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 start that would 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 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 welcomed from many in moscow it's a signal that the u.s. and russia can now open a new page of cooperation with the president obama did a really good job under rather difficult conditions and he managed to get this important treatments approved in the senate and security for the next few years will be based on this treaty and in general i can say that it's easy for me to work with president obama that because he can really listen to me and he used them he's not impeded by stereotypes and what is probably the most important thing for a politician but will he keeps his promises the 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 going to have considerably. you were weapons of mass destruction and on the other hand two nuclear superpowers former adversaries actually trusting each other and looking to work in hand to provide their security get a check on our team washington d.c. . left-wing british m.p. jeremy corbyn says the new start treaty clears the path for a new system of international nuclear arms control it's such a huge step and it was 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 of 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

a nuclear nonproliferation treaty particularly israel india pakistan north korea. in north korea soldiers who reportedly took part in the shelling of a south korean island last month of spoken about the attack publicly they say the act was in retaliation for the so for seoul holding a live so live fire military exercises in disputed waters for south koreans were killed in the shelling of a border island more than a month ago since then souls' been holding more military drills provoking stark warnings from the north military chief says the country will launch a retaliatory nuclear strike if the south keeps up their quote provocations it's the worst tension on the peninsula since the war sixty years ago an expert on korea glyn ford says a new war is unlikely but will remain a possibility if the north feels provoked. 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 and the the recent shelling of the of the island. was called poem the south koreans intruding into what the north koreans considered to be their waters the danger is escalation what you hot is 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 paying their . upping 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 to we need to be concerned about for the future what we need to see is some gestures from either side to try and step down

a maybe an offer from the north koreans for example to give up their with their fuel rods from the only real nuclear reactor and try and ship them to the sides will be something that might be allow us to start scaling down the current levels of tension. commentary from korea expert glyn ford will stay with us here on r t coming up in the program fueling anger find out how the u.s. interest precise day he american air base in kyrgyzstan and what it all has to do with a revolution in that country. and china extends its political influence in europe by offering to help struggling economies but is it enough to save the u r t investigated a few moments. but first the aftermath of freezing rain is causing major delays in disruptions at one of moscow's main airports i stopped electrical cables have ruptured causing a power outage shutting down one of the city's key travel hubs at this time of the

year for more. anyone trying to fly in or out of. today going to be experiencing. difficulties now they've had complete electricity blackouts they none of the flights at the moment a guy you can see here the situation pretty chaotic the weather has had a pretty serious effect on the traffic because the people the tree in the right and people just getting out they call them walking with icy cases but as we said at the moment that's going to be a futile effort because of this electricity blackout and others because the key substations the power a the main the cables supply the electricity has. said now there's the check in baggage still has a pretty serious effect yet you had the flight that landed at the time the blackout happened they had to that give the baggage back to them manually a very chaotic situation in the weather of course having this serious effect now.

to dealing with cold weather that will be seen if the pauls a couple of days just it's the cold weather is actually so essentially the place it's become like an ice rink without them for use it as you said affecting the traffic you also got the trees in the right and that's another problem that's been happening the trees have been freezing unfolding you can see here the with the areas they completely comes out and we've had that's been happening a lot of one hundred thousand people affected by the weather in the region and a number of incidents already that we where people have been cool with these trees falling on the ground so a huge number of the effort has said that they're trying to resolve the situation the moneyman the trying to get an emergency generator up and running and directing some of the flies to share in much of a bit of the time being grounded. at least eight suspected militants have been killed in counter terror operations in the capital of republic of russia's southern republic of dagestan authorities say one of them was the leader of

a local terrorist group police said corner of the militants had a building site in the law and advised them to surrender but when the group opened fire special forces stormed the building there are no reports of casualties among police or civilians officials say the militants had taken part in deadly attacks on the republic security services dagestan has been gripped by almost daily violence between authorities and extremist groups. this week the brother of the late polish president claimed the body buried in krakow does not belong to lech kaczynski yaroslav kaczynski also a former prime minister says he has not yet decided whether to have the remains exuberant poland has rejected moscow's report into the april plane crash that killed lech kaczynski and ninety five others the investigation said the pilot error was to blame it's still not clear whether warsaw is contesting this current polish prime minister donald said the findings into the accident in the southwest of russia are unacceptable more than one hundred fifty pages have reportedly been sent

to moscow detailing where poland believes the investigation was flawed aviation expert chris gates says the russian investigation seem thorough and no further international inquiry is needed. because i think the key issue for the polish it is probably quite a significant amount of criticism of the polish air force and in particular the captain of the cross his copilot operating that aircraft on the day of the tragic accident and i think that's primarily a major cause for concern. what we see you see with the draft report that's been passed on to the polish government 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

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 who copilots the aircraft to make an attempt to learn and that's an airport where there were no conditions at all to land too much for not enough visibility and a lot of pressure being brought on the pilots conspire to cause that accident. stay with us here on r t coming your way shortly carving up the desert the israeli government accused of pushing arab tribes off the land that's been their home for more than a century by the wind of humans. but first the signing of a record breaking billion dollar defense contract was among the highlights of dimitri medvedev visit to india this week the russian president also promised to

build nuclear power stations to meet the growing needs of the world's second most populous nation artie's charan singh reports. financial crisis that shaken the group has let politicians an economist's world why question to school many conclude that the previous order dominated by the u.s. and europe is being left behind by the new rising giants russia india and china and the deal struck with president medvedev during the annual summit between russia and india to support. fortune 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 held 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 supersonic. and now the countries have signed the biggest ever

defense contract and he gets history thank you what billions of dollars in total it's a deal to join to develop a fifth generation fighter aircraft costing nearly one million dollars apiece the jets will be able to compete with the american if you do that costs three times as much at present the u.s. is they will meet such technology which is used should even if it's still since. the new aircraft developed by russia and india would have stepped feature and noble for the ripley. forces energy is another sector two countries ago when they sing together russia has agreed to build more stations for india but to atomic plants it's already building sult the country will come online next year and will provide much needed energy for india's growing economy i am particularly glad that we are.

coming to legume and time cooperation. and gas sector it reflects the complementarity. this strength of the. nation ship is is that it does. to the relationships that countries have with the west you know we can all fall down a day of ways of thinking and various things whether it's a climate change whether it's on science and technology it's on. the financial up he will be been witnessing the rising economies are being seen as the corner store all the new world order and as we enter the mix make it of the twenty first century both russia and india are embarking on the next phase in this strategic partnership god and seeing. for more on this and all the stories we cover you can always click over to our website r.t. dot com here's what you'll find. escaping reality we take

a look at afghanistan efforts to rehabilitate the country's more than one million heroin out plots. if you want to get married with a little something more sophisticated than eggnog this best season our teeth may have the perfect recipe. the u.s. congress has slammed the pentagon over shady jet fuel deals for an american military air base in the central asian republic of kyrgyzstan fuel worth around two billion dollars was purchased for civilian use allegedly to avoid higher tariffs but it was actually for the manassas airbase a key supply hub for the u.s. campaign in afghanistan peter from the eurasia democracy initiative says the deal helped spark on arrest that led to the ousting of the curator's president in april

. what 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 was supplying fuel for kyrgyzstan to prosecute the war effort in afghanistan and members of the family of the deposed former president of kyrgyzstan key if 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 presidents assad not seen but key of who has subsequently followed his father in exile and is now in hiding in the u.k. to try to engage in bed or negotiations with the pentagon regarding the future of the base following kyrgyzstan's announcement that it would shut down the base so what we saw in that case was another proof of the fact that president's family and

so on who are calling all the shots in the country were pretty much running the place what would eventually happened was the direct result of this relationship what we saw in april in two thousand and ten when president bush 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 . care because government commentary from peter from the democracy initiated china says it's willing and able to help out struggling european economies at an economic forum in beijing the country's vice premier pay praised the e.u.'s efforts to cut down debt but suggested that more can be done one proposal is for china to buy bonds for at risk euro zone countries economist marco peter pollie says this move will not be enough. 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 this sees 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. still ahead for you with this weekly news wrap a spy in the u.s. a role model at home and it. is on russia's political stage adding some glamour to the youth wing of the ruling united russia party more coming up later. turning

first though to some other stories making headlines across the globe violence following ivory coast disputed presidential election has for some fourteen thousand people to flee into neighboring liberia at least one hundred seventy have been killed in clashes so far most of those fleeing are supporters of opposition leader alison they all ouattara who the u.n. recognizes as the winner of last month's ago incumbent leader of iran is refusing to step down. a tourist are dead more than twenty others injured when their bus collided with another lorry in southern egypt the bus was traveling from the southern city of os one to the ancient temple site at abu simbel one of the tourist coaches struck a lorry laden with said it had broken down and was parked on the side of the road. a series of actors aftershocks has rocked the new zealand city christ church months after a powerful earthquake struck the region at least twenty buildings were damaged and

power lines cut the tremor blew out glass and shook brick work but there are no reports of injuries police cordoned off the central business district and special units are inspecting buildings scientists warn the tremors could continue for some time. israeli government is rooting arab tribes from the desert they've lived in for more than a century the jewish state says the bedouins built their homes without permission a local activists say the aim of the crackdown an arab village is to replace them with jewish settlements or peace policy or reports from the negev desert. in the middle of new when the remains of a keep village. for the third time in two weeks israeli police came with the fingers as and in a little more than an hour demolished sixty houses. from a flood no this is my land i have a paper i have a document this is my land i ask this government how do i live and how can i afford to buy the same land elsewhere in israel and i can't they want me to sell my land i

won't. and as long as he and hundreds of others won't the police will continue to raid seven times they've come so far backed up by a government whose official policy states this is their land but i think the unofficial policy underneath is that the land should go to the jews not. the big ones on a medic arabs who've lived in the negev desert for more than one hundred years they claim they used to pay taxes during the autumn and period in british mandate but off to israel took over nine hundred forty eight they've been hard pressed to prove their ownership of the land they don't have any legal documents proving that this land is theirs they have agreements of buying and selling between themselves but according to the law of the state of israel ownership of land can only be proven by registering the land in a public office israel says it's built alternative cities fill them with all the facilities they could hope for but they keep coming back to the desert. they're not

abiding by the law they live inside graveyards with horses donkeys sheep the animals mess all over the graves and make it difficult for us to move them but we have to because they need permission to build on the land and they don't have it. i think that. the government would like to push them into the townships were they could become simple workers they would like to give to learn to make the army earn jewish settlements who. who will change the demographic status of the negative just look around here this vast uninhabited desert is home to only seven percent of israel's population several years ago the government launched an ambitious program to the value of six hundred million dollars to try and attract new jewish immigrants and israelis to live here it aims in the next three years to have more than a quarter of a million of them living in the desert but has because the desert is it seemingly

not big enough for jew an arab jew mel torme has lost his way house and seven houses but he hasn't lost his resolve. we are men of peace we don't use the gun the man who came to destroy our houses are the bad faces of this land we did not fight back when they came but the fight will continue because tomorrow when the sun comes up juma will build again and in a few weeks the israelis will return policy r.t. in the negev desert israel. flame haired. chapman has embarked on a political career of russia after her brief debut as an undercover agent in the us shall now head to the ruling united russia party as youth movement at a recent meeting chapman made a speech calling on party members to transform the future for the next generation had a chat and shot to fame during a spy scandal between russia and the u.s. over the summer when the under the f.b.i.

uncovered a russian espionage ring she was one of a number of agents deported from the u.s. in a cold war style spy swap. russian president gives his views on the events that shaped two thousand and ten an interview with the country's top t.v. channels we'll bring you the highlights later this hour after a recap of today's top stories.

dr swan policeman. ministers were i just. didn't find me if i lived through the night. i would get my kids out of here because i knew that. many victims don't understand that domestic violence includes verbal abuse psychological abuse physical abuse and sexual abuse at least for. when women are affected by abuse every year. is that i saw that movie. where he's been it killing me.

he. says. four thirty pm in the russian capital good to have been with us as we give you today's top stories and a look back at the week's news here on our team washington didn't start the green light throwing the ball to russia moscow has already given its initial approval to a treaty which will see nuclear arsenals by a third the deal was signed earlier this year by president played better than obama has been hailed as a major diplomatic breakthrough. threats and accusations between north and south

korea souls ongoing war games close to the border provokes pyongyang into threats of a sacred nuclear war and soldiers who reportedly took part in the shelling of a south korean island last month said their actions were in response to provocation . moscow's reported to be a plane crash that killed the polish president and ninety five others but poland refuses to accept the findings. and happening right now freezing rain leads to a lot of moscow's main airports as the russian capital is covered in. device flights have been canceled but operations are expected to resume within a few hours when power comes back up. next the russian president shares his views on the events that shaped two thousand and ten from wildfires to wiki leaks dmitri medvedev looked at the highs and lows of the passing year sitting down with the country's leading t.v. channels here are some of the highlights.