bye bye both sides it was signed by the two presidents in april but the u.s. senate only approved the deal wednesday after months of heated debate on he's got a cheap yacht was following the process. in the vote. on this matter 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 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 that 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 continued 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. sieved 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. 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 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 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 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 you can really listen to him 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 few were weapons of mass destruction and on the other hand two nuclear superpowers forming 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 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 go to 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 to 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 to not signatories to a nuclear nonproliferation treaty particularly israel india pakistan north korea commentary commentary from left wing british m.p. jeremy corbett in north korea soldiers who are portably took part in the shelling

of a south korean island last month of spoken out publicly about the attack they say the act was in retaliation to seoul holding a 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 sold been holding more military drills provoking stark warnings from the north yang's military chief says the country will launch to retaliate tory a nuclear strike if the south keeps up the provocations it's the worst tension on the peninsula since sixty years ago an expert on korea glyn ford says a new war is unlikely but may remain a possibility so long as 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. the recent shelling of the of the island. was called squanto palm the south koreans

intruding into what the north koreans consider through their waters the dangerous escalation what you hobbies 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 . 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 so we see 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 on a maybe an offer from the north koreans for example to give up their their fuel rods from the young 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. commentary from korea expert glen ford still on the way here on r t diplomatic fallout. there ron is considering breaking off all ties with the u.k. . tales of allegations against american military officials that i've got instead who are reportedly preparing to take the war profit the border. but first the aftermath of freezing rain is leading to major delays endace ructions one of moscow's main airports iced up electrical cables have ruptured leading to a power outage shutting down one of the city's key travel hubs at a very busy time of year some domestic flights have reportedly started to depart r t sara for thousands more from domodedovo airport. you can see here the situation pretty chaotic the weather has had a pretty serious effect on the traffic because it's told to go the tree in the

right and people are 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 powering the main will the cables supply the electricity for a reason and rush it said now there's a check in baggage still has a pretty serious if i if you had she had the flight that landed at the time the blackout happened they had to that give the baggage about to the minute a very chaotic situation in the weather of course having this serious effect. of cool sixty me dealing with cold weather that we've seen of the paul's couple of days rather than just it's the cold weather is actually so essentially the place it's become like an ice rink with them freeze it as you said affecting the traffic you also got the trees in the right and not enough the problem that's been happening the trees have been freezing unfolding you can see here the with and

there it is 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 at the moment to try to get an emergency generator up and running and directing some of the flies to share much of a bit of the time being grounded. at least eight suspected militants have been killed in a counter terror operation in the capital of russia's southern republic of dagestan authorities say one of them was the leader of a local terrorist cell police had cornered the militants at a building site in the advise them to surrender but when the group opened fire special forces stormed the building no reports of casualties amongst the police or civilians official say the militants had taken part in deadly attacks on the public 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 let kaczynski yaroslav kaczynski his twin brother and a former prime minister says he's not yet decided whether to have the remains exuma poland has rejected moscow's report into the april plane crash that killed lech kaczynski and ninety five others the investigation said pilot error was to blame and it's still not clear whether war is contesting this current prime minister donald tusk said the findings into the accident in the southwest of russia are unacceptable more than one hundred fifty pages are reportedly been said to moscow detailing where poland believes the investigation was flawed aviation expert chris yates says the russian investigation seemed thorough and no further international inquiry is necessary. i think the key is to you for the polish 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 the major cause for concern. what we see you see with the draft report that's been passed on to the published 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 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 and a lot of pressure being brought on the pilots conspired to cause that accident. stay with us as we continue reviewing the week's top stories here on r t coming up breaking the silence billion people are you seeing their concerns as the only means of communication they have is still not officially recognized in russia find out why in a couple of minutes. but first the signing of a record breaking billion dollar defense contract was among the highlights of president medvedev his 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 has more on the leader's trip. financial crisis that shaken the group has let politicians and economists worldwide the

question that wall street to school many can do 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 that struck with president medvedev during the annual summit between russia and india to support this. 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 submarines and supersonic. and now the countries have signed the biggest ever defense contract and he gets history 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 f.

twenty two raptor that costs three times as much at present the u.s. is the meat on people's as in such technology which it is used should even with its fuel since unlike the new aircraft developed by russia and india would have steps the churns and noble for the ripley. forces energy is another sector the two countries account when they sing together russia has agreed to build more nuclear power stations for india but to atomic plants it's already building the south of the country will come online next year and will provide much needed energy for india's growing economy i am particularly glad that we're. coming to legume in time corp. hang gas checked it reflects the complementarity. the strength of the interaction and relationship is is that it is an alternative to

the relationships that countries have with the west you know we can all fall alternative ways of thinking and various things whether it's on climate change whether it's on science and technology it's on space with the financial up he will be been witnessing the rising economies are being seen as the corner store of the new world order and as we enter the mix thicket of the twenty first century both russia and india are embarking on the next phase in the strategic partnership got and seeing. for more on this and all the stories we're covering you can always click over to our team dot com here's what you'll find online right now and a scaping reality we take a look at afghanistan's efforts to rehabilitate the country's more than one million heroin addicts. and if you want to get married with something a little more sophisticated than eggnog just best of season our team may have the perfect recipe for you.

iran is considering breaking ties with the u.k. angered by british criticism of its human rights record tehran says the comments were interference in its domestic affairs islamic republic's lawmakers have already approved a bill to cut diplomatic relations the parliament is due to finalize the decision next week relations between the two have deteriorated since tehran to launch claiming that satish intelligence was involved in the assassination of a top iranian nuclear scientist last month political commentator qian mokhtari says that iran is ready to go as far as breaking off ties to keep britain's nose out of its internal policy. iran doesn't seem to have a problem with britain and the us for as long as it's academics and

scientists i'm not the assassin it did in broad daylight in tehran seems to still be. the. type of. and it feels that you think speak out against the domestic affairs of other nations that will what is the iranian will make is like you disagree but this is to send a strong morning well a strong woman this is to send the warning to britain that iran is prepared to go as far as that if such language and such actions such as alleged actions by proxy terrorist organizations are not stopped senior u.s. military commanders reportedly want to expand their afghan campaign into neighboring pakistan but officials deny allegations that cross border black ops are already in the works washington does however use unmanned aerial drones to strike at suspected militants inside pakistan kathy kelly who campaigns against the u.s.

led war says america's military establishment is just trying to make more money. it seems to me that the united states would have an effect similar to what has happened in the past here in afghanistan that along with the drone attacks the invasion of a sovereign country by a united states joint special operations there is means of attack in the death squads and assassinations and night raids would exacerbate the tremendous almost tidal wave of anti-american sentiment amongst the public united states establishment the military industrial complex companies have learned that you can make an enormous profit you can stuff your financial portfolios and run to the bank and that you can do this in another limited way and they've learned that lesson and they would like to continue it but as far as what the united states might have

learned from listening to people on the ground who are in touch with those who bags of drugs of the united states worker i'm talking about the families whose loved ones have been slaughtered i'm talking about families where people are now widow and orphan the united states doesn't learn from listening to the cries and the pleas of people who beg us to stop the killing. commentary from anti-war activist kathy kelly turning now to some other stories making headlines across the globe violence following ivory coast 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 the opposition leader i'll assign a a lot tara who the u.n. is recognized as the winner of last month's vote but incumbent leader laurent gbagbo is refusing to quit. or is have died more than twenty others injured when their bus collided with a truck in southern egypt the bus was traveling from the southern city of os one to

the ancient temple site of abu simbel it hit the truck laden with sand which had broken down and was parked on the side of the road. a series of aftershocks has rocked the new zealand city of christchurch this comes months after a powerful earthquake struck the region at least twenty buildings were damaged power lines were cut the tremor blew out glass shook brick work and masonry but there were thankfully no reports of injuries police have cordoned off the central business area and special units are now inspecting the buildings scientists warn the tremors could continue for some time. palestinians in gaza have fired two rockets into israel hours after israeli aircraft killed two suspected militants in the region the israeli army says militants were trying to plant explosives near the border and israeli officials warned last week that another war was quote only a question of time while hamas has threatened

a quote strong response to any aggression. for a deaf people living in russia communication gets no further than their own community although there are an estimated ten million people who are hearing impaired in russia a sign language is still not officially recognized in the country are these dire push cova reports on their silent struggle. alex he called here the song. from the family. yet he sings it with his camera is such. that i thought it. was. he tells me he speaks the most beautiful language in the world. and so despite living in the world of silence alex and his fellow performers put on

a show full of life and music our. audience appreciates this theatre of deaf actors is an exception in the world mostly hostile 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 a sorry day language 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 you don't.

wish. you. 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 they. he's one of four children the only deaf one in the family. this is the fast beauty shop for the hard of hearing and his self into a protest was. was.

they may not hear but there are no cute and then love told king. was . was all true those who call him all the same people it may be just that the music of their hearts and so is allowed but still not proud enough to be officially recognized. was the. showbox archie still.

later this hour we'll follow the jury's a five u.s. war veterans who talk about what it means to fight for your country in the first of our special the first part of our special report coming your way after the headlines stay with us.

club some team has been to the region where industries are rapidly developing. now wattie goes to the homeland of those with strength of mind and body. to the land developed by cossacks in ancient times and which became a premier destination for nineteenth century political exiles. this is the on screen question on oxy. hungry for the full story we've gone to. the biggest issues get a human voice face to face with the news maker. download the official placation i phone i pod touch from the i choose our. life on the go. video on demand. comes and says feeds now in the palm of your.

question on the dot com. fifty. five. ft. five thirty pm in moscow good to have you with us as we give you today's top stories in a look back at the week's news here on r t washington give start the green light throwing the ball to russia moscow has already given its initial approvals with treaty that will see nuclear arsenals slashed by a third the deal was signed earlier this year by presidents medvedev and obama and has been hailed as a major diplomatic breakthrough. threats and accusations between north and south

korea souls' ongoing war games close to the border p.-r. nyang into threats of quote sacred nuclear war soldiers reportedly took part in the shelling of a south korean island last month said their actions were responding to such provocation. open and thorough aviation experts back moscow's report into the april plane crash that killed the polish president and ninety five others poland refuse to accept the findings more than one hundred fifty pages of reportedly been sent to moscow detail and where warsaw believes the investigation was flawed. and happening right now freezing rain leading to major delays and flight cancellations at one of moscow's main airports as the russian capital covered in a sheet of ice the first few domestic flights have already taken off reportedly check ins luggage and transport and customs are still working manually with no power up next we talked to war veterans who tell us what it's like to be a good soldier stay with us for the first part.