it's kiss is a member of the vilna city council and says soviet soldiers would responsible basing my opinion on the witness and on the book which was published by the former head of parliamentary the national security committee chair so he wrote in his book and nobody denied that but from this tower representatives of. where shooting down into the crowd. and other businesses who i know who lived in that area and still live pointed to both houses here. on the roofs off which houses there are people who are shooting and baseball bat. fresh opinions on historical events are nothing unusual based on newly discovered evidence others merely conspiracy theories what's different is that mr polanski his argument that it was lithuanian government that were responsible could land him in jail i am

facing a charge of. up to two years in prison i mean i have i may receive a fine up to two years in prison i think this is absent from terms of human rights and freedom of opinion absurd or not it's the law in life you wait here that was with. the lithuanian penal code provides for criminal responsibility for the public denial of genocide crimes against humanity or war crimes people who belittle these crimes or more victims should be held responsible the nine hundred ninety one aggression against lithuania and its citizens falls under the definition of a war crime. as an elected official mr player is a mune from prosecution however he has waived this right and is prepared to stand trial local historian's question player to give his sources and back the official version of events. on the one hand there were civilians who wanted

self-determination on the other hand there was military might in my assessment the events of january nine hundred ninety one were an attempt to solve a problem with the use of force it claimed innocent lives. but should questioning history bring with it a criminal investigation. i don't think that this is a reason for a person to be prosecuted it's his personal opinion the authorities have overreacted but it's up to the lawyers to decide it's a provocation but it's based on certain logic lithuanian or thirty's did make attempts to provoke the savior thora t's and compel them to start solving the lithuanian issue. should he be found guilty by the call. in his native lithuania and gladys polanski says he will appeal to the european court of human rights an appeal he's convinced would be carried out from a jail cell history may not agree with the opinion of mr politico so it comes to the events of january one thousand nine hundred however those same historians are

unsure whether it's the role of the legal system to determine who can say what about the circumstances of the deaths of fourteen people here in vilnius peter all over r.t. lithuania or nowadays we live in the information age and the era of the internet but for many people around the world russia remains a mysterious and misunderstood land it's often portrayed as an evil totalitarian state where only vodka helps people survive the eternal winter as artie's you've got this kind of reports it seems foreign media finds dated caricatures a better story than twenty first century truth. today kids have gone since the cold war ended but it's ghost seem to be alive and well in some ways to make wars but it's the way russia is presented is often one sided or plain negative and if there's no proof sometimes authors just refer to their own previous publications it's obscene that. trans leads for an order cause

and blogs for a news website so russians can read for themselves how their country are seen abroad and quite often this is what she has to deal with. paranoid mischievous and heading in the wrong direction russia is an awkward prospect for barack obama russia a totalitarian regime in thrall to its our who is creating the new fascist empire russia is institutionalizing a state gangster culture which promises repression and ultimate economic failure for itself perhaps during the call the war the iron curtain which are either blocked or distorted most of the media reports made it easier to create a specific image of an isolated state but times we have changed most foreign press has long been available either in its original language or in translation to anyone with access to the web the nonprofit internet domain in a forum publishes daily translations of water goes about russia from ten countries

and other material from up to ninety others and judging by what's written russia is still often seen as a vodka drinking beer overrun by mafia seeking world domination. president's made a video of an obama has been pushing horror that we stored in relations but it is the western press deliberately avoiding a restart of its own because cold war stereotypes are simply easier to sell. the press as a hostage of macdonald is ation a product has to be easily understood and quickly consumed and if the reader is developing intellectual obesity it's he's problem as long as this type helps make some money and boost ratings the ryland war over twenty years ago but perhaps some coverage just doesn't want to let the facts get in the way of a good story why do i tell you all the stuff you go to school of moscow. and still to come for you here on the program on r t hungry for change. this is seen as

a key trigger behind the rally is rolling across the middle east look at which countries could soon be next. and with speculation of a change at the top among the occupying forces what mistakes are still prevailing in afghanistan. in the middle east and government demonstrations have spread to libya with hundreds of people taking to the streets in the first sign of the country's unrest the uprisings in tunisia and egypt have triggered a domino effect of protests calling for reform across the arab world in yemen riots continue for a sixth day between pro and anti-government demonstrators demanding the country's u.s. allied president step down two protesters were killed and several others wounded in violence and bahrain police have used tear gas and buttons to disperse the crowds during three days of one arrest and fresh clashes have erupted in iran during the

funeral of one of two killed in monday's antigovernment riots some members of the country's parliament called for the execution of opposition leaders they say orchestrated the protest president ahmadinejad also vowed to punish the organizers while the u.s. says it strongly backs the opposition and in egypt where strikes are continuing interim power is now in the hands of the military which is reworking the constitution all of which is creating difficulties for washington and its middle east policy so say it. the united states have been developing a global policy throughout the last decades global policy in which it came into support tweeze most of the authorities governments that you can see on the broad middle eastern scene the americans consider that defending their own interests in the region can't come without making as. if they were really supporting the

democratic processes that are prevailing in the region and that is why you could see that in the beginning when you had the riots in egypt they didn't really support the public opinion they came much more with a position that was keen to what hosni mubarak wanted but when they noticed that they couldn't do anything against the results that was taking place then they decided to compose with the public opinion in to tell them that it was in favor of democracy process but i think that anyway whether united states are willing to do is. defending their own interests and that is why they try to anticipate things and they try to make as if they were the best friends of the public opinions that are present in the ground. while some say that social media has played an instrumental role in the recent wave of middle east uprisings now the u.s. has reiterated its calls for unrestricted internet access for all promising another twenty five million dollars to help to fight state repression online at the same time though washington is trying to shut down wiki leaks investigative journalist

webster tarpley says it's another case of double standards. hillary gives these speeches about once a year or so she's out there announcing that the u.s. government is interfering in internal affairs of countries hillary clinton is out there posturing about internet freedom where is the head of a regime obama has demanded and presumably received the ability to turn off the internet in the united states what mubarak did in self-defense is what obama can do that's the big hypocrisy so far the state department guys are tweeting in english french and spanish they've added arabic and farsi so they're going big in persian language into iran and they're adding chinese russian and hindi so it's all these other targets that opened up the thing that hillary clinton talked about is digital activists in other words there's a huge ball during the world they want to mobilize these people i think what she's got in mind is a secret army of hackers and indeed trolls that will be the shock and awe of the

new decade and this is what they were able to deploy in egypt they say it's simple you get the rich kids using facebook and twitter you get the rich kids into the square you put that on television you convince the rest of the society that the government is deeply unpopular and the revolution takes off it's a way to come on manipulate and dupe and entire society and that's this is what a color revolution or cia people power coup or post-modern co actually is well the way egypt protests may have ended as a demand for democracy but it was the cost of putting food on the table that actually just many onto the streets food prices that became overwhelming for ordinary people and it's a problem being seen all across the world correspondent kevin ford takes a closer look. in egypt the revolution took to the streets. but it may have started at the table when food prices began skyrocketing for the

more than forty percent of egyptians living on less than two dollars per day. and it isn't just egypt around the world where there are billion people who are already hungry they spend more than half of their money on so these these kinds of world crop price increases can translate in twenty or thirty percent or more increases in their cost of. food prices rapidly rising beyond the levels of the two thousand and eight food prices are forcing americans to make tough decisions at the cash register to vote the fries we have to have to learn how to do things. because they don't know we don't get a raise to go into everything and everything means basic staples like milk be coffee and cereal which rose five percent in the last few months alone. is going to get some of the excess of fifty dollars and i get

a lot of i mean if i want to. but decisions about who pays and how much aren't made at the register says journalist frederick kaufman imaginary wheat being bought and sold by financial giants is controlling the price of real wheat they're made on wall street by big investment firms who distrust dollars and euros and instead hedge their bets on commodities who's winning you've got it goldman sachs j.p. morgan chase the largest holders a lot largest financial dealers in this they're doing very well as the u.s. pushes producers to convert corn crops to ethanol the crisis deepens around the world demand for biofuels has tripled over the past six years and will triple again by two thousand and twenty growing demand for by. challenge increasing the amount of food we have to produce for people and. farmers are having a tough time keeping up but americans aren't as eager to push frustrations from the

grocery store to the streets from work to take. you know we haven't got. the we get do we do with thirteen point nine billion dollars in cuts to food stamp programs over the next three years means that the average american family all receive fifty nine dollars less per month bringing less food to their tables but it's unclear whether it will also bring them out in the streets in florida washington d.c. . new two thousand and twelve budget plan submitted by president obama has a speed heated debate over spending priorities some senators have been saying it will see cutbacks on health care programs and an increase in corporate tax thereby hitting business growth economics expert richard wolffe of the university of massachusetts the budget cuts will battle the effect the people but government elite. i think we have a political system that is sclerosis and what i mean by that is all the beneficiaries of government spending the companies that get subsidies the military

producers who sell goods to the government the working people who get some benefits even if they're small all of them have mobilized to hold on to what they get to make it politically costly for any congressman or woman to go against them those people whose programs will be cut they will be hurt those people whose taxes will be raised they will be heard but these are very small potatoes the basic picture which republicans and democrats alike support is a budget that's going to be basically of one and a half trillion dollars short the government is going to spend that money the republicans and democrats agree on all of that they're just squabbling over little amounts but the larger picture nobody addresses nobody debates and that's an economy that requires a huge amount of government support to keep hobbling along and debts into the future that we will suffer

a farm much more than anything being debated by republicans and democrats in washington today. there are always plenty of stories for you to explore. online twenty four hours of. waiting for you right now the concept of multi-culturalism. from the very top. of. the post's local competition. for two thousand and fourteen. videos. is he.

the official. video. and. the pentagon says it's not decided yet when the top u.s. commander will leave his post newspaper reports that general petraeus will step down this year he was appointed about eight months ago as part of. the country but our military says that despite all of america's efforts the number of mistakes in

the country is getting hired. american occupation of afghanistan has already exceeded all possible saw that mistake in that country and accomplished even more than that in a negative sense and simultaneously having missed all the positive developments that war triggered and promoted by the soviet union intentionally or not in afghanistan i'm not going to justify the soviet military campaign in afghanistan however i do believe that the current american military campaign in afghanistan provides and ample evidence to exonerate the soviet political economic and military presence in afghanistan from their raise e.g. of the united states information agency propaganda which rolled supreme during the cold war battle you know afghanistan the economic objective was to distribute the

farmland to farmers and that's why they're so it forces will fighting the landlords the united states do not try the landlords the befriending the landlords and have turned them into the drug lords and the main negative success story for the united states occupation b.s. that afghanistan has been turned deliberately and not into the narco caliphate. well a former u.n. anti drugs chief says corruption in afghanistan prevents the majority of aid money from ever reaching its intended target a lucky told r.t. that nato itself is contributing to the problems. doesn't do with narcotics causing separation. the contribution of the ministry of patients by the need to with. very sound is different. their contribution to be is the

military logistic. they subcontract just to people from any stripe to private companies. subsequent to. the media through just the easy business of a couple billion dollars. to africa companies who are comprised by warlords and sometimes even by the thought about. to go to the security of. their goals from kabul to anywhere in afghanistan in exchange of huge amount of money and the the money that these taken from the military nato military logistic is more i calculated the takes from drug trafficking. and you can catch the full interview in just over an hour's time right here on c ok let's get to some other international stories making headlines around the world this hour now the leader of north korea's communist regime kim jong il seventy

years old crowds are starting to gather in the capital pyongyang to celebrate his birthday a week of festivities. polluting exhibitions ice skating and music shows it's widely believed leaders healthy after a stroke in two thousand and eight and the son kim jong un is being groomed as his replacement. japan has a temporarily suspended its annual antarctic whale hunt before. it's quota after repeated disruptions the sea shepherd conservation society has been chasing the fleet for weeks in the i.c.c. s. off antarctica that comes a year on from a collision in which a japanese whaling ship. blamed each other. for a u.s. immigration and customs enforcement agent was killed another one hurt while they were attacked when driving through northern mexico on choose day one was critically

wounded and died from his injuries the second he was shot in the arm and leg remains in stable condition it's not clear if the incident was related to the escalating drug violence in the country where u.s. and mexican officials are working together on the investigation. the czech republic's health minister and a group representing the country's doctors have reached a deal to end the cold a bit of speed hit a peak in december last year when three thousand of them handed in resignation letters on the deal hospital doctors are to receive a pay rise of around three hundred fifty dollars a month this year and next the deal still needs the cabinet and union approval. or crosstalk is on the way just over about five minutes from now but first it's the business news with yulia. that's right time for a business update gas from expects export revenues this year to top the pre-crisis

record as natural gas prices increase and the demand for the fuel recovers throughout europe the company said the total exports revenue could exceed seventy two billion dollars this year which is two and a whole billion more than in two thousand and eight. to boost its exports to europe this year expecting european gas prices to rise fifteen percent cast from also said it is a ready shipping ahead of show deal meanwhile ukraine's not to go out says the prices base for one hundred cubic meters of russian girls will go up to two hundred eighty dollars in the second quarter of twenty eleven. time to see how the markets are faring and in russia the indices are rising this hour as investors continue to trade cautiously both the r.t.s. my stocks are gaining though marginally stocks are still tracking asian gains also energy shares are beginning to react positively on higher oil and that's on the one

hand but disappointed statistics from the us are dragging them back down let's have a look at something as. grand shares are mixed this bear bryant is gaining one point seven percent no real cynical is inching lower a barge in the sand but several studies gaining on the mice it's about point one percent. let's have a look at some european shares and you can see that the european indices are rising french drug makers and off air vent is is up two percent after it a bridge to buy its rival genzyme corporation put twenty billion dollars in cash. and french land general said its fourth quarter profit could cripple choo-choo a turnaround. russian unit the russian consumer banking business had a thirteen million here a profit compared with the loss of fifty eight million euros last year russia which

is the lend us second largest market by employees may become the biggest contributor to the international retailer earnings by twenty fifteen. and of the annual russian business week is underway in london it aims to address the most pressing economic issues facing russia and the world and speaking in the u.k. capital on tuesday russian foreign minister sergei lavrov revealed that trade investment finance high tech and nanotechnology is were among the priority issues to be discussed during the forum our correspondent laura emmet is live there and reports on today's plans. it's an annual conference which brings together russian businessmen and foreigners involved with russia to discuss the business in investment environment russia is one of the u.k.'s most important trading partners with the route just thousand british business is working in russia trades topping seventeen billion dollars as such participants drawn from the public and private

sectors in russia will address opportunities with and for russian companies and how to strengthen the political and economic image of russia in the world they'll be presentations on the role of foreign capital in the oil and gas industry and also a look at the changing investment climate in russia as the country diversify is away from hydrocarbons and tries to be fast pits technology and small business sectors they'll also be sessions on building and promoting moscow as a global financial center but human capital is also high on the agenda with an emphasis on preventing a brain drain in russia they'll discuss the importance of attracting talented people back to the country to encourage innovation in all areas of business economics and technology archies laura image reporting and that's it for now my colleague richard jenkins will be bring you more in an hour's time and you can get more stories small website r.t. dot com slash business.

with.

this street still keeps its secrets but time to feel. the soviet files. on obsolete. british. markets. happening to the global economy. in the united kingdom. house bill and. the old wave in. some country house. the bull towns. the crimean defeat. the oil the ruben's hotel.

the headlines in the politician is facing up to two years in jail. stateline. its claims that local authorities were responsible for the death of fourteen protesters in twenty years ago. troops and. the western media. hard to abandon best selling cold war stereotypes when it comes to depicting countries are still often portrayed as an evil totalitarian state of. soaring food prices are highlighted as a major trigger behind under arrest and street rallies in the middle east the

problem could also be spreading to the world's richest countries. cross-talk his eyes he will be debating whether there's enough food to feed the world that's coming up right now here on r.t. . we'll. bring you the latest in science and technology from. the future. below we welcome to cross talk. is the world facing a serious and sustained food crisis prices.