and also the rug rats that's it for now from all of us here if you don't have your sound spotlight just drop me a line we'll be back with more first time comments on what's going on in and outside this country until then stay on our team and take care.

the wiki leaks of founder julian are forms has appeared in the u.k. court as he finds extradition to sweden over a section of salt allegations which he claims are politically motivated. the u.s. is the qs of protecting a former cia agent who is wanted in latin america for the deadly terror attacks as he goes on trial over immigration reform plots. a breakthrough in the rescue

mission to retrieve the shit star of russia's place with the icebreaker is now close to achieving that final. russian markets are getting the ruble is strong or oil is up find out the reasons why in twenty minutes. very warm welcome to you this is r.t. live from moscow with me alice had that the wiki leaks founder has briefly appeared in a london court as he continues his battle against extradition due to the soldiers wanted in sweden to face sex crime allegations which he claims have been fabricated in order to eventually prosecute him on espionage charges in the u.s. or as he's keeping a close some developments for us. it was essentially what they call

a case management herring today which is when they set the date for the main herring and just check that all the evidence is in course and being prepared in a timely fashion we do now know when the full extradition extradition hearing is going to be that's going to take place on the seventh and eighth of february so we've got to wait another sort of three weeks for full the full herring to happen julian assange has appeared in court on tuesday for this case management hearing after it was over he made a short statement to the media outside let's hear what he had to say we are happy about today's outcome. i have a record to make available to members of the press. skeleton argument which we've had to produce in very short time over christmas what happened before christmas was that julian assange which was released on bail out happened around about the middle of december after after a fight really to be released on bail in the end the bail sum was set at over three

hundred thousand dollars and he's been staying at a friend's house in the east of england ever since then waiting for this extradition to happen and that of course follows the issuing by sweden of a european a rest warrants on sexual assault allegations made by two film a wiki leaks supporters and joints to talk more about the details of this case by gerald batten who's a member of the european parliament for the u.k. independence party he's also a valium and opponent of the european arrest warrant which is of course the legality under way students ourselves his extradition to sweden is being requested joe budden thanks very much for talking to us so we now know that the main hearing is going to be on the seventh and eighth of february what what do you expect to happen that will you see if the lawyers on mr sanchez so i try to challenge the evidence against him which i might do and say well it's not sufficient to justify extradition on judicial surrenders and now it's all the chance. well i'm not

allowed to consider the evidence i'm not allowed to take into account the only grounds that you can oppose extradition very narrow you have to be old enough to committed the crime it has to be a distant past you know twenty five years or something and it mustn't be because you're being processed persecuted on the grounds of your political sexual orientation very narrow grounds like that which he won't qualify for and of course i have sat through a case where it seemed fairly obvious to the court and indeed to the judges hearing the appeal that the evidence had been manufactured by the police but of course another important element in this particular case is this pressure that we understand is coming from the u.s. to eventually extradite our stars there to face espionage charges what do you think that will bring oh yes i'm sure there's lots of political maneuvering inside the powers that be a very difficult position the americans want to get their hands on a song which authorities now think the game's up people can see what the european arrest warrants are about. so my guess is i know what they're going to do but i'm

fairly confident that they're going to come up with come sometime in a cynical fix that will allow him either to go back to australia or possibly to go back voluntarily to sweden if some kind of deal is done about what charges will be laid against him but what we'll want to do i'm sure is put to bed this whole. media publicity about the european arrest because this is just this there are other legal instruments coming through which remove our freedoms in other areas of life down in the name of integrating europe's legal systems. member of the european parliament chaired bassinette. now for as cia agent alleged to be one of the most notorious terrorists in recent history has gone on trial in the us he was the father is wanted in cuba and venezuela for most aligning a number of deadly terror acts including the one thousand nine hundred eighty six bombing of a passenger plane which killed over seventy people but not all of these episodes

are among the charges he faces in the u.s. john hopkins explains. miami florida white sandy beaches miniskirts and. this vacation spot is also home to a convicted international terrorist luis posada could be less coined the bin laden of the americas the anti castro cuban was the cia's dirty secret in south and central america trained as an explosives expert at the new tory a school of the americas posada's acts of terrorism spend five decades it impacted half a dozen countries. over seventy people were killed when cuban airliner for fifty five was bombed in one thousand nine hundred ninety six a terrorist act put side of plans from venice and according to cia documents the agency was aware of it before it happened bush either cutlass was the mastermind of

the of the woman on the. flight and still he's here posada was convicted in absentia and then a swell of masterminding the bombing however not only did the us government refused to extradite but started to venezuela to serve his term the cia continued to employ him as a key element of the country wars which clean lines of seventy thousand civilians in nicaragua. with a leading figure in the iran contra. there in the one nine hundred eighty s. had the cia stop assad in his tracks just off in my shoes my brother was killed in libya the still most brother fabio would still be alive put yourself in the place of the ends of the victim of the family victim of terrorism and it's absurd distil know an italian businessman was murdered in one nine hundred ninety seven bombing orchestrated by posada it was one of a string of hotel and nightclub bombings in cuba and it wasn't the only acts of

terrorism poseidon was involved in there was the two thousand assassination attempt on cuban leader fidel castro and a series of attacks across latin america after jailing posidon upon entering the u.s. illegally law enforcement agencies warned the justice department of poseidon's terrorist past but he was set free anyway was now poseidon is on trial in el paso texas the charges against him not international terrorism but immigration fraud and perjury we unleashed him on the world peter kornbluh of the national security archives obtained dozens of documents pertaining to put out his involvement with the cia he says the case is about whether the united states truly can hold real terrorists although in this case a terrorist who was once our terrorist accountable livio acknowledges the importance of posada on trial but insists it's going to be too little too late the legacy of luis posada is that he is

a cia created frankenstein and he went out and committed murder and mayhem the cia once described posada as a reliable asset to the u.s. government a man of good character pro-u.s. who would make an excellent official in a post castro government half a century after posada could be less again doing the cia's dirty work in latin america his bloody legacy lives on for the countless victims and as the u.s. government continues to fight the so-called war on terrorism extradite. kidnapping and assassinating suspects in other countries it continues to harbor one of the hemispheres most notorious terrorists john hoffer's our chief washington d.c. still ahead for you this hour on all to you look at how loyalty comes out of rice in afghanistan a report on local militia men trained by u.s. forces are putting their financial well being and of any protection to the community. well the portuguese finance minister says he doesn't

expect lisbon for a bailout to resolve its economic problems senior officials from the country have been resolutely denying media rumors that portugal is being pushed to ask for one hundred billion dollars package will to discuss this and more i'm now joined live by a member of the european parliament is it really a very this is about as many thousands are joining us now we see officials shaking their heads to all this big reason darlin how do also denied that they need to be bailed before it eventually happened so we is portugal next in line for couch. i'm sorry if i didn't hear you perfectly well but well at this point of the debate in portugal while to admit that. i feel a certain schizophrenia because from the outside there is a. pressure mounts for portugal to. recur to the i.m.f. and the stability fund and on the other hand domestic news tell us that the

government today presented its deficit numbers and that they were quite good that they have raised been able to do to lower our deficits to less than seven percent so while i think that there are mixed messages there are everywhere on the back on the background of great instability of the eurozone and of the great institutional weaknesses of the euro zone that are all to meet with the causes of all of this saw. a certain stage either portugal goes to the i.m.f. or know either portugal manages to lower its deficits right away or make it in the medium or long term what happens that is that still the euro has institutional weaknesses that haven't been solved. even if not america misses a horsy have told us in december that they will do everything to save the euro fact is that the european union has not done its homework from december to january and

now the pressure is back again possible sort of a mixed messages as you say and still a question mark i have to walk portugal's next step and as you say there are question marks over the year as a currency there in the euro zone but what portugal does decide to take the money will it ever be able to pay it back will it just plunge it further down a debt how do you think. well i think that portugal didn't have a sustainable situation year ago postle didn't have a real estate bubble like spain had or didn't have a bank crash like ireland have we have some minor and quite well known bank problems but they are relatively minor in scope as compared to the irish problems well the question is that at a given point it's futile to set up portugal is different from spain and from ireland and from greece all together because even if our debt is not unsustainable it can be created and sustainable it can be you know the interest can be raised up

to a point where it becomes a sustainable so this is a cycle a self-fulfilling prophecy and at this point speculators and the markets and the rating agencies know very well how to do it if it's not unsustainable now it will be in a months from now because you can you know lower our ratings and then see the ass's will go in in price it will be more appealing to bets against portugal's bankruptcy and so the problem is still there the problem is a problem of either we see the euro as a common economy and then all this you know peripheral problems disappear all of a sudden because the euro doesn't have a big problem of that doesn't have a big problem of balance between what's in that spot or if we take separate. brutal economy then for sure we will have problems and then they will get to belgium and then they will get to spain which is the main prize here speaking of problems that we see across europe and drawing some other potential comparisons now if the

situation does get worse in portugal do you think that we might see people turning out onto the streets as we saw with both greece and ireland. well the portuguese have already taken to the streets sometimes they are that we have had a quite successful general strike the question is that well we've implemented several packages of cuts in order to satisfy. foreign investors and to satisfy the european commission and we have been following the pommels on those cuts so it's not that they have not been effective our books have not been cooked as others have cooked their books so what happens is that these codes have proved futile they have not worked so. at a certain stage we will ask ourselves ok lessard that we caving we accept the i.m.f. with new cuts but the problem is that the the postal service is it's that we deal with our work

a competitive missing girls problems we cannot do both at the time so if we go to two if we give priority to only servicing our dept what happens is that we'll have a recession you'll have deflation deflation in its turn will turn our real depths into a much bigger problem than what it is now and well after i.m.f. lots comes really. really go shaking the dept or leaving the euro together so why shouldn't we just really go she at the depths before going to the i.m.f. i am feel that's at a given point one of these countries that are in the firing line greece and then ireland or not who have to do something different from. the from the draft that's been given to us in order to make you know opened his eyes of the of the european commission and the big european powers in order to say that we have to so what we have to solve is this additional weaknesses of the euro they have said in december they will do everything to save the currency they have done nothing where are zero

bonds where is steps towards a common treasury where are these you know foundations of the euro that will go towards fiscal union fiscal fiscal federalism that's many. people have suggested that there were much new that shocked a lot has said many people have said it and where are the steps towards taken towards do the portuguese do their guts but what do the simple powers do ok mr roots various member of the european pot and many times even to us about portugal's economic problems since many thanks. ok well portugal mulls over its economic who is all those are being more practical max colonies or in states you have that here how one european government has incited the wrath of fiendish powers with its new tax that claims a report is coming your way next however it has a pretty. media switches curse income tax ruling so because of the financial crisis and the collapse of the banking systems and g.d.p.'s around the world

romania's government has started taxing witches and fortune tellers from the first of january this year and because of this the witches are basically cursing the government now a queen which brought her a booze there is fierce about the new law and she says that she plans to cast a spell using a particularly effective concoction of cat excrement and a dead dog goldman sachs collateralized debt obligation most of it is cat extreme it and dogs this is what they're finding the federal reserve bank's balance sheet in washington the reason why they're afraid to do an audit at the request of ron paul is because they know that they've got basically dead beetles eye of newt small chicken bones some dead cat excrement that's about all they got of the federal reserve because the us is technically. grow up and solve so these witches are fighting fire with fire yeah they're extreme it with dog poop.

but even through ten has expressed his condolences to us congresswoman and others cool top in amount she was saying and i was saying the prime minister was visiting rushed. mission control center when he spoke to democrat gabrielle gibson's brother in law who is currently on board. i want to assure you that everyone in russia sympathizes with the situation i know that mrs giffords is the wife of your brother he's also an astronaut who visited moscow just like you we're very sorry about this and hope that she will get well we give our condolences to the families of those who were killed in this shooting. or the shooting rampage took place down the super bowl here in our zone or it left six people dead and fourteen others injured on monday's south main jared loughner made his first court appearance on five charges including attempting to assassinate a u.s.

congresswoman gabrielle giffords that was shot in the head and remains in a critical condition the shooting spree once again ignited the debate on stricter gun control in the u.s. we are consulting d.j. walker says it would be a very tough time to cool down america's liking for firearms americans have. all of a fear and it's basically politically impossible for any politician to try to propose all the reading. just recently rules are written to let people bring guns into schools in arizona so that is an extraordinarily difficult political challenge because the gun lobby basically controls congress in america and local legislators as well. afghanistan where the u.s. army is training local militia to help fight the taliban and while the strategy appears to be working in some areas there are a few significant drop banks to it is jason more like found out for our city. as

the southern gateway to kabul and home to a long stretch of afghanistan's national highway wardak has been the focal point of the taliban's comeback in recent years in early two thousand and nine but we're stretched afghan forces were struggling to hold back so military planners decided to raise a local militia to help cover the most dangerous gaps the sides a kia quit a better paying job to join because he was tired of the fighting around his village in the valley nicknamed by u.s. troops the valley of death for its deadly ambushes and firefights. the situation was bad here and i needed to do something for my family for a good worse. there are hundreds of militiamen like him spread across wardak province now the afghan government and u.s. military are about to launch dozens of new militias in hotspots around the country the minute this outpost would train for three weeks by american special forces units if you kalashnikov rifles and are paid about two hundred dollars

a month to keep watch over their own community they are approved by the village elders and they work within the district there from which gives them not only do they understand the dynamics and the people that they're working with their understand the community and and the threat in the area two years ago the valley was a taliban stronghold where u.s. forces and armored vehicles came under fierce attack nearly every time they tried to drive through it today attacks are rare in the afghan local militia travel freely in pickup trucks from the beginning however critics have argued that arming militias in place of government forces could create vigilante groups which are impossible to control militia forces will be loyal to the government a problem with the president karzai they will certainly be loyal to those who would be able to replace united states and financing the former head of the program in wardak a shady ex taliban commander named mohammed has already been replaced some u.s. officials privately suspected he was playing both sides and of the twelve hundred men that began the program nearly four hundred have quit taking their weapons with

him it's believed. it doesn't subduing the insurgency these forces if they had not support it and get not addicted it is sourced it could be used against the government because the real join those groups who can support them those who are in afghanistan militia stand accused of murder theft and rape in northern province locals say they are worse than the taliban with support for the war effort flagging the u.s. military's looking for a quick fix of forces can leave but hasty decisions risk making a bad situation worse it is more militias are raised in the year ahead it appears there will be more risks to manage jason more in the job is valuable for our team. now refers aeration the ship that have been done fall thin ice all fast as far east case has been transported to safer was his bites he wants break is now heading to a supply ship that's been stranded for always a fortnight with more than three hundred crew on board all sisera for how the

details of this rescue operation. certainly the welcome to the crew a large supply vessel as the two ice breakers. crosses and heading back towards no it's a slight change in strategy that we've seen in the final stages of this rescue operation we saw in the early hours of yesterday morning they managed to free up the refrigerator and they started fighting that all of yesterday and today tools. but what happened earlier today was that they mounted a helicopter picture just from the album marker of ice breaker and they managed to see the area idolise the ice and they managed to find distasteful to leave this refrigerated vessel and that's freed up these two ice breakers to now pay back the same way they come which means they can avoid having to break free further ice coming back so they'll be making their way back to last large

a supply vessel that we had stand a press conference a federal fishing agency say the final part now going of freeing up this large ship is going to be the most difficult. reconnaissance helicopter to send by the emergencies ministry was observed to the can now which before would regularly freeze and i'm clear in stable. because compton's have decided to turn around and come back for the supply ship leaving the refrigerator vessel for now to try and get the supply ship out the operation has now entered its final and most difficult stage according to our calculations it will conclude within forty eight hours to get both ships. would know the estimate as to when the final operation is going to be finished still very dependent on these weather conditions that we seeing you know about the whole operation that is really being very tricky for these icebreakers they come up very late incredibly because.

they've now been able to continue along the path they do not it's now entering the final stages and it's. and he's got a business update on the way now. and then welcome to the program the ruble has jumped to a twenty two month high against the euro and is at a one year high burst as its target barca's the currency is up more than two percent against the euro watch as the first trading day in russia after the holiday and this is just local investors are repatriating money amid concerns that europe's debt crisis will worsen but the ruble is this will change versus the. mergers and acquisitions activity in russia more than doubled in twenty ten thomson reuters study says sixty seven billion dollars worth of deals were done making the country the evan a leader in eastern europe telecoms chemical wind energy sectors where the main

drivers are global and they market began this year with new highs with eighty three billion dollars worth of consolidation signed in the first ten days of january that's a twenty one percent increase from the same period last year. belo reason is raising the transit tariff for russian oil by a twelve and a half percent that's starting from next month the increase was agreed upon by both parties at the end of last year following months of talks whether it's expected eight hundred million tons of oil to be pumped through its territory during twenty eleven that's well roughly the same as in twenty. the same with crude oil prices hits twenty seven month highs near ninety dollars a barrel at the moment now aleksey corkin senior or oil and gas and those from what else says the rally is partly being driven by speculation. well since we can't identify the fundamental drug was strong enough to cause a robbery of this magnitude. all we can do is describe this

through financial speculation nonetheless the prices actually translate into. the prices which are. consumers worldwide have to have to pay for fuel. and so this is going to have a real impact. you called them is. one of the markets now u.s. stocks are climbing on upbeat outlooks for alcoa sears and tiffany's and as investor worries are easing over the euro zone yes now that's up to the european central bank stepped in so you buy under pressure euro area government bonds for the second consecutive day the dow is up twelve point three five percent with bank of america ahead the trend with a one point six percent increase the nasdaq is climbing point two percent this our . european stock markets in the black in london the forty's.