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extreme weather conditions playing the fragrance of the rescue missions of free the team remaining said cuts in the ice of press this case. cashing in on conflicts although more than half of americans are against the country's wards there are fears find the cuts at the pentagon one go ahead if big business gets its way. also pension up the traditional image of a happy retirement in the u.k.

is a shattered by report which says the elderly. suffering financially more than any other group. as a whole the season draws to an end here in russia the first working day being on choose day we're looking at some of the factors that may be moving money in twenty eleven join me for more in twenty minutes time. around the world around the clock this is r.t. trapped by ice for almost two weeks now a refrigerator a vessel stuck in frozen waters off russia's far eastern coast is now being towed by a pair of ice breakers several other ships have been rescued from the same situation over the last few days that now leaves just one with over three hundred crew as the last to be freed. following the operation. two icebreakers still working

hard to free these remaining two ships but it has been incredibly tough. because it is not the macro not to play the fool out at the remaining t.v.'s lose the refrigerator said and they've got to see that they're trying now to get it through the thin ice area but it's been tough going they've had to bow to this incredibly thick ice and their plan is to die and i will say to the eight woods agave back and get the lodge at the ships which is the supply vessel that is so that one's going to be much trickier to get out of the ice they going to really need to combine the efforts of the base of the bit of the 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 for the ice break his team mates 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 poor visibility that has to be full of the maybe we can hear more

from that press conference no. the ships will show you clips together to watch the area if they're not used 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 rescue we then saw the two ice breakers and they got in and out no macros dispatched to help them earlier last week another couple of ships getting stuck in the ice and then had to be helped so they've managed to free up three of them as we said the towing the full and they're planning to go back for the fifth officials are saying that hatefully the one that's being told at the name of the refrigerator vessel should get to thinner ice and. possibly some more ice at some point some more if. it was it gave out the largest supply ship that we've also heard that that's going to be made. same problems with using break is no certain

exactly what's going to happen with that yet of course the crew aboard this flight three hundred three men we should desperately get out to be treated that i thought that they did as he said they were the conditions that they may be making it very hard given i hear it when the. latest developments off this maritime rescue operation. well the u.s. plans to spend seven hundred twenty five billion dollars on its military this year that's the world's largest ever defense budget while the pentagon plans to trim its spending over the next five years many 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 us committed to staying the course there are all kinds of motives for that war exuding 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 and eight a president once warned about this industry we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence whether sought all runs on by the military industrial complex it was fifty years ago that us president eisenhower said those now famous words let's look at though were 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 in some you know particularly arms companies because they have representation every state and district in the country in many cases they have a 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 hart 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 those who agree with part time 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 us really wants to end the war or ever leave afghanistan in a stand it's 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 to look at natural gas pipeline 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 a must 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 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's 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 lauren lyster r.t. new york. still to come here on the program on going viral on the internet quite literally team of russian scientists in. event of a powerful online microscope but let's research is a zoom in on you strands of viruses and microbes from anywhere in the world.

and to the u.k. now 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 growing debt and reduced income has risen six fold and his arteries are lower and it has been finding out that leaves them struggling just to afford the basics of retirement depicted as a golden age where older people get more time to enjoy their families and hopis 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 wouldn'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.

if you know that. a bit to try and make out the money that come in that because nothing done back in again. in the end i would have to. 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 and all costs.

clee the. state. as quickly as 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. canton 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 know we're at it oh it's the. mean time the trends for costa gerald celente believes the 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 look for. 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 you're 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 climb. 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 of the allies nations so now they have a corner because it's a sad thing then so what we saw in the. u.n. with all their 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 sort in france figured out. well we're coming to you live from the heart of the russian capital this is nazi. now let's take a look at some other major headlines from around the world this hour and separatist group has declared a permanent cease fire but spain's deputy prime minister has rejected the announcement describing it as nothing new and saying it didn't go far enough broker a cease fire agreement in two thousand and six when it planted a bomb at an airport killing two people it's often violent campaign for independence from madrid has claimed more than eight hundred lives over four decades of fighting. and four people have been killed as flash floods ripped through northeastern australia a sudden torrent deluge the town in queensland washing away cars and trucking

people on roofs there are more weather warnings for the stricken state still to come which has taken a pounding from heavy rain and overflowing rivers an estimated four thousand people have been evacuated from their homes. and iran has launched an investigation into the boeing plane crash that killed seventy seven in the northwest of the country the aircraft with one hundred and four passengers on board failed to land at the city of all due to poor visibility it was circling for another attempt when it disappeared from radar there have been 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. well there's a growing tendency in western countries to consider islam and 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 later. fired up about the perceptions of islam in the modern world.

what's ahead in about an hour's time. the underlying foundation is to take all side of the world. muslims you know has to believe in islam and in this sense and as a state what stands out i'm not i love to live and that's the american constitution they are here to eventually thought if i made it count one stick your shin with islamic sharia because no one is allowed to live and that it's. ok this is what mohammad said well but 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 have your places in the muslim world in which muslims are way way way in which muslims or either a majority or a minority so i think you're simply taking a nap so you can work out and try again you're right in your trying to universalize it in a way that's not true. all right i crosstalk is coming your way in about an hour and a quarter from now this is all to you live from moscow now many would agree that sharing videos and pictures online is old news but sharing your micro bacterial the day on the web is something different altogether russian scientists have to fight a microscope system that lets the colleagues from all around the world to zoom in and view the tiniest bacteria over the internet in real time as time barton brings

us up to date. but 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 viral particles in beef teeth we give all the knowledge about the viral particle it will be a possible for off. to develop in your way. we sure will defeat of the virus. 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 him for our program

can be connected to any microscope in any part of the world and it's just one click away that 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 at computers 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 apiece and the team's efforts to keep the cost of the microscope down and get it sold a regular frustration bloated bureaucracy. he thought difficult. last thing with part time. off either our product to another

country or a theory that is part of that i still hope. some other ones labs 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 interconnected by the internet so the team and their customers will be watching this space very closely indeed tom watson r.t. moscow. and it's now we're just twenty twenty minutes past here in the russian capital you with r.t. top of the business news with dimitri that's coming your way next. well and welcome to the program twenty eleven may become a revolutionary year for russia's finances the ambitious 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 as reports. at the start of last year russia was the owner of thirty five hundred seventeen federal state minister 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 sale of meat 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 grins the 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 in state land d.t.b. which the government hopes to complete by early two thousand and eleven among the other companies being mooted for the position are russian railways is burbank those hydro and so i've come for in most cases the gun plans to retain a controlling stake at least in the initial stage however it does stems the need to be flexible and wish them with a beautiful we can go further and sell the controlling stake so in the majority of companies we can lower the state's 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 there are part of the vision programs which are going to be implemented in poland in turkey china is one of the biggest issue as 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 a year although many questions still have no answers regarding this some vicious

privatization one thing is for certain the desire to make it happen. business our city. all right the markets time u.s. stocks calling as europe's debt troubles come into play with the focus on portugal's economy material stocks are taking quite a beating here with the sector losing one point four percent the dow is off four point six percent nasdaq point four percent. european stock markets also in the red the banking sector is coming under pressure again over portugal's debt in london for years down well around half a percent oil giant british petroleum is slipping off a leak at the transom alaska pipeline forced it to virtually shut down production of its biggest fields in north america and frank for the dax is off almost two percent now with commerce back down two percent boys are back point six percent. meanwhile in russia trading will begin on choose they where at the end of the

holiday season here the past year was a game of two hogs for the russian markets the head of strategy at u.b.s. and moscow explains how investor attitudes changed two thousand 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 world meaning emerging market universe. the south stream gas pipeline project aimed at strengthening european energy security is on track it should be on line by twenty fifteen south stream will open a new route to southern e.u. markets for russian gas across the black sea in addition to the current rate for ukraine the head of south stream has been giving business out c.

and updates 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 there are defeats ability studies on shore and the other important steps that we are on the taking right now is of course working on the shareholder agreements we have to make sure that all the shareholders agree on how to structure the project commercially and trying to 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 a potential other approaches.

gold was a clear metal with twenty two and beating all records and delivering a first six percent return for investors russia has the world's second largest gold reserves but it's only ranked fifth in terms of production that gives russian miners some of the best growth profiles in the industry as i said again soon veer off from deutsche bank russia told r.t. . but. i think. the support of bush along the bull price for war increased because. not only as safe michael but the only industrial production projects the other safe with are used for more in industrial production that will generate the investor of the month for this model and. has a little for input from the long term pros of the problem is a piece of the company will make a good use and then it will spark in the three of us for the stock.

and i'll be back in fifteen minutes time with a business news update hope to see that. for the full stop we've got. the biggest issues get a human voice face to face with the news.