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extreme weather conditions playing that phrase to the rescue mission to free the t.v. . cashing in on conflicts . americans are against the country there are fears that cuts to the pentagon go ahead and big business gets its way. also. the

traditional image of a happy retirement in the u.k. is shattered by. suffering financially more than any other group. and trading here in russia. the first time since the new year we'll be looking at what's likely to move the markets. in twenty minutes on business. around the world around the clock this is r.t. now trapped by ice for almost two weeks now a refrigerator stuck in frozen waters off russia's far east stop being towed by a pair of ice breakers several of the ships have been rescued from the same situation over the last few days that now leaves just one with three hundred crew as the last to be freed. is following the operation now joins us live and bring us

up to date sara we've we've learned that nothing can be taken for granted in rescues such as these but tell me what's the progress. well they break a still working hard to free these remaining. that has been incredibly tough guy thing. because it is not the macro not to say this move at the remaining t.v.'s the refrigerator. and they've managed to get that trying not to get it to move into ice area but it's been tough going they've had to battle with this incredibly thick and the plan is to bed once they go to the eight. and get the launch of the ship which is the supply vessel that is so that was going to be much trickier to get out of the ice they're going to really need to combine the efforts of bases than that at a press conference today we had the federal fishing agency saying that there really is a lot of complications with this they're trying to come up with different maneuvers

to the ice break his teammates effectively break through the size muesli heard that they were possibly thinking of dispatching a helicopter to try and help with the navigation of it in the tough conditions that we see and the full visibility that has to be full of the maybe we can hear more from that press conference. the ships will show you clues together towards the area of to no use for another thirty five miles. because we return to the supply ship. now these tough weather conditions we see really affecting this whole operation i remember it's been twelve days now but the original three ships couldn't for that risky we then flew the two icebreakers and they got in and out of dispatch to help. earlier last week another couple of hits getting stuck in the ice and then had to be helped so they've managed to free up three of them as you said the towing the fourth and they're planning to go back for the fifth but the exchange conditions making it very hard to know when the ships

will finally be freed up. there is obvious progress that's being made but when you talk about the conditions the miles of ice and the heavy winds and just tough environmental challenges here tony what are the predictions on how long it's going to take to free all of those who are still stranded. what we're here. at the moment is that it's really very hard to say as he said over the past couple of days progress has been made he's still the arrival of the large ice break across and that certainly helped to break up some of the ice around the remaining two officials are saying that hatefully the one that's being towed at the moment the refrigerator vessel should get to the riser. possibly morays at some point some more and then they'd be able to gave out the largest supply ship over we've also heard that that's going to be maybe some problems with refusing these ice breakers so it's not certain exactly what's going to happen with that yet of course the crew

both the supply ship that over three hundred three members desperately get out to be freed at that i thought that's both a bit as he said the weather conditions that may be making it very hard to give an accurate estimate as to when they'll be freed up right to surface there with the latest on this maritime rescue operation thank you. well the u.s. plans to spend seven hundred twenty five billion dollars on its military this year that's the world's largest defense budget while the pentagon plans to trim it spending over the next five years when you say that will be jeopardized by the interests of big business and such of lucrative military contracts lauren lyster investigates. when it comes to the afghan war well over half of americans oppose it and after a year of record casualties and having ploughed in over three hundred sixty six billion dollars why is the u.s. committed to staying the course they're all trying to shift motives for the war

including energy motives and profit motives and strategic motives and if you're wondering why some in the u.s. just might not want to see the war and ever here are three reasons thirty six billion twenty five billion twenty three point five billion those are roughly the dollar amounts the top three american defense companies were handed in government contracts in two thousand. eight the president once warned about this industry we must guard against the acquisition of unwanted influence whether saw it all runs or by the military industrial complex it was fifty years ago that u.s. president eisenhower said those now famous words let's look at the where u.s. defense spending has gone since then it's skyrocketed from just around five hundred billion during the vietnam war to more than seven hundred billion dollars now during the post nine eleven wars and some argue that escalation is tied to exactly what eisenhower was warning about but there's a whole range of business that just you know lives off fighting wars and i think

it's you know particularly arms companies because they have representation every state and district in the country in many cases they have congress on their side you know to build the weapons or if necessary to use them lawmakers cast the votes that ensure a military contractor such as lockheed martin gets two hundred sixty dollars from each household a year according to heart on three search making it the single largest recipient of taxpayer dollars meanwhile companies like lockheed dole out millions in political contributions and for lobbying each year and promise to deliver politicians not just weapons but jobs sometimes they will even say you know if you vote with us we'll put a factory in your district to those who agree with hard turn say the defense dollars are sure to keep coming for contractors as long as the influence continues and as long as the empire continues to expand you're suggesting then a permanent u.s. presence in afghanistan something which you consider we have bases all over the

world when you think strategically you may wonder if the u.s. really wants to end the war or ever leave afghanistan again to stand is next to the middle east and it's next to russia and it's next to china it's a wonderful place to have bases and weapons and nuclear weapons it's a place where they very much want. natural gas line looking at recent history our combat mission is ending but our commitment to iraq's future is not what does it mean to say a war the united states would like to end the iraq war by keeping the military bases there keeping fifty thousand troops there keeping enough control of the economy so that if the iraqis do anything at all that the united states and its investors don't like we can immediately kill another hundred thousand iraqis and while in afghanistan the u.s. is still spending billions trying to win the hearts and minds of the people it looks to some like resources are going in

a different direction you can drive along and for at least a mile and a half there will be a wall and there is some kind of big american construction of ammunition depots and housing happening on the other side of that wall and on the other side of that road you see the people who are displaced are actually living in tents without heaters and without blankets not through cold winter afghans left out in the cold while the u.s. government and corporations appear to capitalize on a war that looks here to stay more in mr r t new york. just one in ten minutes past the hour here in moscow you with our still to come for you in the program going viral on the internet quite literally a russian site to invent a powerful online microscope that lets researchers zoom in on new strands of viruses from anywhere in the world. to the u.k. where pensioners are going bankrupt faster than any other group in the country and

insolvency service report indicates that over the past decade the number of elderly with a growing debt and reduced income has risen. and as our to use lore and it has been finding out that leaves them struggling to afford just the basics. retirement depicted as a golden age where older people get more to. time to enjoy their families and hobbies but a new survey shows a different side of old age in britain a worrying picture of a country where more and more elderly people can't afford to retire pensioner lydia portsmouth won't say how much money she gets from the state but she's forced to dip into her limited savings to pay her monthly bills like many others she wasn't able to push away a lot of money for her retirement and what she does have is now earning so little interest in the bank that she regularly has to spend the capital that money.

that pays the bill with. a bit of why to try and make out the money that come in because nothing back in again. lydia is one of the lucky ones she owns her own home and has a small amount of savings but data from the office for national statistics shows more than half of single pensioners in the u.k. live on the equivalent of less than forty five dollars a day with nearly a quarter of a million getting by on hoth that the consumer credit counseling service helps people to repay debt when they get into trouble they're seeing an increasing number of older people with huge credit card debts and no way to repay them and they say life's only going to get more difficult they're going to get worse in so far as all costs. are up and it's very unlikely that the. state.

will go up as quickly as the cost of the things are going to have to borrow so that's going to be a problem it's a bleak picture for pensioners present and future rock bottom interest rates mean the elderly can no longer live off the interest from their nest eggs if they have any and interest rates may not go up for several years a new pension scheme which will oblige employers to pay into a fund for all their employees isn't due to come online till twenty twelve the result seven out of ten people in the u.k. contant visit a traditional retirement in the future where people stop work and live off their pensions for thirty years and for every year the government raises the pension age currently sixty for women and sixty five for men it stands to save itself twenty billion dollars it's a freezing winter here in the u.k. so many pensioners will struggle to pay heating bills and it's unlikely to get any easier for older people the government plans to raise the age at which people could

receive a state pension to come back to government debts and as a response to higher life expectancy but while that's all right for the rich critics say it's the poor who will suffer by being forced to work until they drop. you were at it oh it see. well trends for cost are gerald celente believes that social unrest we saw in many european countries spending cuts on tax rises is the beginning of a global revolution the full interview is coming your way in about twenty minutes time but here's a quick preview. look what's going on in europe the people of woken up what they call a stereotype measures this is what austerity measure is you know that degree you have in worthlessness that you went to college for you can't get a job oh and by the way those services are getting we're cutting that oh and those pensions and benefits that your parents are getting or other people are working we're going to cut those to zero and one more thing we're going to raise you tax

cuts you know that education that's not worth anything it's going to cost you three times as much to get one particularly in england and that's why they're taking to the streets so that's why we have on one end it's the wake up call and the other one it's screw the people but the people realize what's going on you're going to see a revolution worldwide the youth of the world have particularly the united states now in terms of debt to claw my. way to the top and they're seeing the too big to fail bailed out they're seeing the gap between the rich and the poor the widest in the united states of any just realize nations so now they have a cause because it's a thing then so what we saw in the in the good with oil food here heads what we saw in italy with the students taking to the streets you're going to see in spain

you're going to see in ireland you already sore in france figure it out. all right it's quarter past the hour now here in moscow let's check on some of the major headlines. around the world this hour people have been killed as flash floods ripped through northeast australia a sudden torrent deluge to a town in queensland washing away cars and trapping people on roofs there are more weather warnings for the stricken state which has taken a pounding from heavy rain and overflowing rivers estimated four thousand people have been evacuated from their homes. iran has launched an investigation into the boeing seven twenty seven crash that killed seventy seven in the northwest of the country the aircraft with one hundred four passengers on board failed to land at the city of due to poor visibility it was for another attempt when it disappeared from radar screen at least five major crashes in iran since two thousand and five

u.s. sanctions have been blamed for making it hard to maintain the country's aviation industry. soldiers from the people's liberation army are among those who have cast their ballots in the second day of a weeklong referendum which could see the country split with christian dominated south is expected to vote for independence from the mainly muslim north the country's president has suggested that the south should start with a clean slate and not have to carry the north that the vote is part of a two thousand and five peace deal which ended decades of civil war that claim two million lives and displaced nearly twice as many. well there's a growing tendency in western countries to consider muslims in the context of terror but to what extent is that a misinterpretation and what can muslims do to change global public opinion about their religion not too far away on r.t. people avails cross-talk get fired up about perceptions of islam in the modern

world is a quick look at what's ahead. foundation. take all side of the war. muslims you know has to believe in islam as it in this sense and as a state what stands out i'm not i love to live and that is the american constitution they are he had eventually thought it plays that i made it count on stick your shin with islamic sharia because no one is allowed to live but and that . this is what mohammad said well thought well that is that is that all of that is contrary to the reality of a person like me who is an eighth generation american whose parents are christian whose associates and friends and loved ones in many ways in many cases are christian no one has ever told me in any religious context that i've been in that the purpose of my life was to somehow overturn constitutional law and replace it

with sharia that simply isn't true nor is it true in agreement on radio you know your place is in the muslim world in which muslims are way way way in which muslims are or either a majority or a minority so i think you're simply taking a nap sprinkler out and trying and you're right in your trying to universalize it in a way that's not true. that many would agree that sharing videos and pictures online is old news but sharing your micro bacterial catch of the day on the web is something different altogether russian scientists have developed a microscope system that lets their colleagues from around the world to zoom in and view the tiniest bacteria over the internet in real time. brings us this close up

view. imagine a terrible virus sweeping across the planet scientists racing to try and understand it then stop it. then imagine a new tool enabling all those scientists via the web to see the minute structure of that virus within minutes it's a question that concerns these scientists and engineers in moscow we should know all about the why of all particles if you were given all the knowledge of all of the viral particles it will be a portable. to develop in your way. we sure will defeat. the device is called a scanning probe microscope and they've existed for some time in many countries but this team has zoomed in on a novel potential this professor from a university in faraway italy isn't just able to talk about the microscope online using special software he can actually control it program with our program can be connected to any microscope in any part of the world and it's just one click away.

the benefits of being able to scan images via the internet are becoming ever clearer doctors can share information about newly discovered viruses or bacteria as they're scanned and it's also helping to instruct students the world over. it takes only one microscope and each student can work a complete is and at the same time as they have all the processes going on in real time a lot of course it's not all seen through rose tinted lens making something this precise requires top quality components and laser accurate engineering coming out today for thirty thousand dollars a piece and the teams efforts to keep the cost of the microscope down and get it sold a regular frustrated by russia's bloated bureaucracy. and he thought difficult. last thing with part time. off by the power to another country or a theory that if part of that i still hope some of that warm slabs can start

cooperating in how they see the world of the very small it could bring big changes to the worlds of medicine and science. in this and other machines the team hopes to build over three hundred microscopes every year by two thousand and fifteen they want them accurate they want them affordable and they want them into connected via the internet so the team and their customers will be watching this space very closely indeed tom barton r.t. moscow. right now it is just after twenty minutes past the hour here in the russian capital you are with r.t. now time to dive head first into the world of business with it dimitri. the last of the holidays here the business year begins on tuesday i believe that's absolutely right first working day of twenty eleven choose the finally i could say but for the russian market is going to be a game of catch up with other global markets which were trading over the past week while twenty eleven may become a revolutionary year for russia's finances the business privatization program that

starts this year promises to become the largest since the post soviet selloff in the ninety's and is going hand in hand with plans to make moscow an international financial hub i saw there been good takes up the story. at the start of last year russia was the owner of thirty five hundred seventeen federal state uniter enterprises and a shareholder of twenty nine hundred fifty joint stock companies if the goal is to sell off state property within the next three years goes to plan the russian government will release one hundred fourteen state enterprises and another eight hundred nine stock companies into private hands including stakes in ten largest firms the expected proceeds from the sell off may top thirty billion dollars and it's not just about the possibility to tackle budget deficit which is the government's first priority the second one is actually big reason governments are on the ship of the economy increases transparency. for governance and to make it much more competitive in the first deal is the perspective sale of up to thirty

five point five percent is state land v.t. b. which the government hopes to complete by early two thousand and eleven among the other companies being mooted for the project is ation are as near to russian railways as burbank roads hydro and south come forward in most cases the gun plans to retain a controlling stake at least in the initial stage however it does stands the need to be flexible and wish them with the we can go further and sell the controlling stake so in the majority of companies we can lower the state share to twenty five percent plus one this flexibility will be key to winning investors given the amount of deals expected outside russia and also within russia this year which will make for other tough competition preservation programs which are going to be implemented in poland in turkey china is one of the biggest insurers an emerging market as we all know and also let's not forget the russian private sector which pre-crisis has been issuing twenty to twenty five billion dollars worth of paper year although

many questions still have no answers regarding the submissions privatisation one thing is for certain the desire to make it happen. business are. so good. some of the markets that are trading today european stock markets are down less than a percent the banking sector is coming under pressure as sovereign debt concerns spotlight as yet another european economy this time it's portugal that may need a bailout in london the footsie is down almost half a percent will join british petroleum is slipping after a leak at the transom lask a pipeline was to to virtually shut down production at its biggest of north america the frankfurt dax is off one percent which shares and commerzbank down two percent back down one point three percent and as we said earlier in the program traders in russia are on holiday and they will come back onto the floor choosing the past year was a game of two holes for the russian markets the head of strategy at u.b.s. in moscow explains how investor attitudes changed two thousand ton turn it was very

difficult here for the russian equity markets it was characterized by increased volatility that was a function of what has been happening globally like concerns about sovereign defaults concerns about capitalization of european banks in the second half the situation started getting bad with. certain areas like investment growth and that translated in russia be forming quite significantly the rest of the emerging market universe. the south stream gas pipeline project aimed at strengthening european energy security is on track and should be on line by twenty fifteen south stream will open a new routes to southern e.u. markets for russian gas across the black sea in addition to the current route from ukraine and the head of south streams been giving business out see an update on progress. we are working on the. feasibility studies now

in various places along the approach the feasibility study all sure is very far ahead is in many respects already completed then they are defeated by the two studies on shore and the other important steps that we are on the taking right now is of course working on the shareholder breman so we have to make sure that all the shareholders agree on how to structure the project commercially and financially we're having discussions no also with the european commission our main point in these discussions is of course the commission and the you should make sure that this project has the same opportunity and is not in any way disadvantaged as potential other projects. gold was a clear measure when and twenty percent beating all records and delivering a furtive percent return for investors russia has the world's second largest gold

reserves but it's only ranks fifth in terms of production now that gives russian minus some of the best the growth profiles in the industry has said gates some video from deutsche bank told r.t. . but it is all underperformed put in metal i think move price and the disappearance of bush along kind of the bull price will increase because the world might be used not only as safe michael but also in the industrial production for large extent this if they used for more in the industrial production it will generate the investor of the month or this model and also put this has a lot before interest in the long term pros of the problem is in the educational risk of the company will make a difference in high and then it will spark new investing in the rest of the stock . and that's it from this edition of our program see you again in fifty minutes time hopefully.