india and in egypt where the military has replaced the ousted government the situation remains tense with spots of protests in different parts of the country a lot of policy looks at whether the weeks of unrest there has made any change to the egyptians to come any closer. mubarak's out the army is in and the question now who's next. to. which way the country's going to. start saying it's nearly a week since he gyptian generals promised to lift a fifty year state of emergency but there's still no sign of when that will be the army knows limitation when the decision was taken not to drop and fire not to do any slot there in. within their own people most of the ability to be the next controller has been a controller as of egypt but they do want to be the controllers of the peace and therefore the army if it once can keep the state of emergency in place for as long

as it says it's necessary but not everyone thinks its intentions are noble finian cunningham is a middle east expert in bahrain from way visual and internet communications have been cut by the authorities in egypt schimmel unchained. protesters were. supposedly eventually the state of emergency. grilled in a country where nearly thirty years but the mobs dodging rebuying we called assurances among white robe to be skeptical or. intentions of the military my mind is a photographer who couldn't wait to capture egypt's revolution on film but he was stopped at the border by gyptian soldiers. so just how different is egypt today under the generals from the egypt of yesterday under mubarak emergency all of the. central component of the. governing apparatus

when i. think like the present. it's in chess or more or. generals and for as long as a state of emergency remains in place the hopes that millions of egyptians to the streets remain up in the air that egypt's not the only country the middle east that lives in a state of emergency across its border here in israel depending on who you talk to this country to has its emergency doors on militancy with the small is because we live in a bad neighborhood day you have here in israel democracy our elected politicians you. know israel is another state in the region and. it's in part by hearing and good. democratic. but israel routinely released war of aggression against neighbors and karen stranger. of emergency who is living its usual life no one moved from from the center for themselves or

from the north to the center but wherever it is there's no denying that a country in a state of emergency is a country where democracy is ignored and if in egypt the generals don't make clear signs to move towards democracy soon in many protesters might be wondering what exactly they were out on the streets for the r.t. tel aviv. the president of the arab lawyers association said protests across the region a been ignited by a hatred of too much western involvement in domestic policies. certainly the unifying factor is that all of them have had enough of tyranny dictatorship the governments that have all been so subservient to the west that this goes against the will of the people in that region generally speaking the interest the national interest of the west is contradictory to the national interest of that region the arab countries have a problem with israel they have

a problem with the americans they have a problem with capitalism and this is going to this is a unifying factor. president of the arab lawyers association. well coming up in just a couple of moments here on r.t. it's a religious affair in rome to me to me paid a visit to the vatican we have all the details on his meeting with the pope and how it could change the relationship between the countries church. plus still to come russia's wealthiest woman finds herself in the middle of a multimillion dollar theft scandal to get all the details a little later here on r.t. . the first u.s. congressmen and pentagon officials are debating help best to trim the country's fifty five trillion dollar debt prison barack obama has already proposed cutting the massive defense budget by seventy eight billion that's over the next five years the pentagon is making sure the cut doesn't come at the expense of america's ability to wage war while non-essential programs are being slashed the proposed

budget would actually see the pentagon spending growth this year what is obvious christine for all reports or americans a pain the price of living in a war mongering country. times are tough for many on main street but most in government agree before assisting people like this it's more important to assist people like this. perhaps this is one reason the u.s. military budget is more than fifty percent of the entire world and once again the top brass came to washington to defend defense it is my judgment that the department of defense needs an appropriation of at least five hundred forty billion dollars for fiscal year two thousand and eleven for the u.s. military to properly carry out its mission maintain readiness and prepare for the future defense secretary robert gates also discussed cuts he's made to the military budget on programs no longer needed what you may not know is that most of the seventy eight billion dollars he's cut would take place in twenty fourteen and

twenty fifteen when there will be a new secretary of defense and possibly a new president still this was his. announcement last month that all describe how these reform efforts are followed through to completion will make it possible to protect the u.s. military size reach and fighting strength despite a declining rate of growth and eventual flattening of the defense budget over the next five years as far as that flattening budget here's a look at current spending compared to previous war efforts and even after the cuts experts say in twenty fifteen the military budget will still be about one hundred billion dollars larger than in the bush years and about fifty billion more than the reagan years so what's going on here economist richard wolfe says it's simple 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 congress man or woman to go against them here's congressman buck mckeon chairman of the house armed services committee who has fought cuts tooth and nail there will be winners and losers in this process tough choices must be made but i will not support initiatives that will leave our military less capable and less ready to fight. in addition to the wars in iraq and afghanistan and the health and safety of men and women serving and there are also other expenses more than eight hundred military bases in places like the marshall islands and a seven million dollars sponsorship by the army of no. usually pleas for money come close in the name of life or death drastic reductions in the size and strength of the us military make millet armed conflict all the more likely with an unacceptably high cost in american blood and treasure but the real treasure

lies with those with the real power according to trends research institute director gerald. simple this is the hand writing on the wall it's called the military industrial complex is in charge of the nation and until that changes there will be an invisible cloak around the pentagon that will allow no one to touch its budget what you will see are the things that are sacrificed the basic cuts in service to the roads that go on repair in people who are forced to live on the streets and a continuing decline in the health education and overall quality of life for most americans in washington christine for us now. well for more on this i'm now joined live from the u.s. capital by miriam pemberton she's from the institute for policy studies thanks very much indeed for joining us here on r.t. so the u.s. wants to cut defense spending by seventy eight billion over five years but i've just read in an article that you've written in response to this that they're not

going to cut anything well surely a cut is a cut so what do you mean by what you've written. a cut isn't a cut. if you're talking about what the defense department is doing what they do and they've been doing it for years is a envision you know very ambitious plans for military spending then they pair them back a little bit and they call that a cut but it's still going to be more than if if we implement the plan that secretary gates has has proposed we're still going to be spending more than we were spending at any time during the bush administration or indeed any time. since the end of world war two isn't necessary though to be spending more money rather than cutting it was robert gates made clear in that report we've just seen we're looking at a lot of instability around the world at the moment this is a time for the u.s. to be spending more on global security and not less. well as you pointed

out we're spending not quite but almost as much as the rest of the world put together so the idea that we need to spend even more. seems like a very questionable proposition you talked about the reach of our of our military bases around the world some of those bases were in saudi arabia it's pretty clear that they are doing us at least as much harm as they're doing good by inflaming sentiments in those countries who don't want to be occupied by u.s. military bases and so i think we need to really look carefully at what we are spending for this military security and really whether it's making us in fact more secure and i think that's. for sure you're also pointed out that less money is going towards the iraq war but make a difference between america's war spending

a military spending not too sure what that means surely anything to do with war military just simply military spend. isn't that what's the difference. well there is there is a basic military budget which is actually four times larger than what we're spending on the wars and then. we spend on the military where there were involved in any wars or not and then when we actually get into a war we appropriate more money on top of that too to execute these wars and so are our war budget is separate from our base military budget which goes on whether we're fighting any wars or not huge amounts of money being invested in the military also should be a good time to invest money back into the u.s. economy it's a way of a country spending its way out of recession this is going to provide a lot of jobs an income for people who perhaps wouldn't have it if their all big military budget comes. yeah i mean what we need to do is

shift savings that we can readily make in the military budget into. other forms of investment in our economy that actually create more jobs we commissioned a study a couple years ago that showed that a billion dollars invested in the military creates about eleven thousand jobs but if you put it in for example mass transit which the president wants to do you create seventeen thousand jobs seventeen thousand jobs from mass transit eleven thousand jobs from military spending so this this investment in things we need that will actually improve the productivity of our economy as a whole. is a is a better job creator than military spending you must be looking into the future you're talking about the massive amount of money spent on the war budget while we we know that america has pledged that it will be cutting its troops from afghanistan by twenty forty and we've seen a massive reduction in troop presence in iraq short of the future by what we're

seeing and by definition of what we're seeing we are actually going to. see the u.s. meeting its obligations to cut spending because of its. lack of presence in those two conflict zones. that's absolutely true i think we could we could be drawing down much faster but we are drawing down and the war budget for two thousand and twelve is smaller than previously you know however. sometimes what happens is is if conditions on the ground as they say deteriorate then they simply appropriate more money for for the war budget but the war budget that they've put out this week is is smaller than last year so that's that's that's good well you paint a very interesting perspective on the how you see these defense budget cuts thanks very much indeed for sharing your views on this great to have you on our team in

person from the institute for policy studies there in washington thank you. kosovo's marking the third anniversary of its declaration of independence from serbia the republican two news to suffer from huge economic and political chaos and the crisis has been further deepen by a recent critical report submitted by the council of europe it accuses some of course of his leading politicians including the current prime minister hushing touchy of being involved in horrendous crimes during the one nine hundred ninety nine war of succession among the allegations of executions abductions and organ trafficking on wednesday serbia called on the un security council to investigate the charges council of europe member and austrian m.p. your hands said it wasn't in the interest of the e.u. and the us to investigate these claims earlier. the european look was that the serbian side the bad side the evil side. that we have to investigate the crime of the evil side the evil side which was also the loser of the conflict in the end

the military might of nato and the united states prevailed over the losers and europe and the states were on the winning side and it was in the interest of the winning side to find out a lot about crimes from the losing side from the side they stood up against after the. intervention and the de facto creation of an independent course of all state. and protectorate as we saw it in the last years before independence well the things we're so father to return to serbia of the problems was almost impossible because this would have resulted certainly not a round of war the permanent administration of course as a colony or as a protectorate was not feasible as well so in the end there was no other way than granting independence which was to my feeling not right because it was against international rules against the law of the peoples as we know it was council of

europe member and austrian p. you hand you that. space passion courtesy of a renowned former agent spy scandal made headlines around the world. and nick chapman is not a mission to get the russian space industry to look fabulous all the cosmic details are a little later on the program. that's still to come for you but first pope benedict says he wants to learn russian well that's what he told me to medvedev is currently on an official visit to the vatican just every year since moscow in the holy see restored ties for decades of disagreement and. has more. this is the first visit over russian president to vatican city after russian vatican establish diplomatic relations back in two thousand and nine president dmitry medvedev and bo benedict the sixteenth touched upon a number of global issues as well as a cooperation has been russia and italy within various international organizations

but they also talked about the cross concessional dialogue between the russian orthodox and the roman catholic church as members of the russian delegation have been saying that it's a little ations between the churches have been improving recently and that right now a possibility of a meeting of the leader of the russian orthodox church patron cureall and had all of the roman catholic church who benedict the sixteenth is now much more possible than it was several years ago so in that respect this visit has been very symbolic also during president that if the visit to rome a number of energy deals have been signed russia and it's really have agreed to jointly invest in two major infrastructure and energy projects in north africa also it was decided that plushy is going to be involved in developing the elephant oil fields in libya together with its elite and a career italy is russia second largest trade partner in the european union after

germany and according to preliminary asked amidst the trade to volumes have increased between the two countries by nearly twelve percent since two thousand and nine. the turning over that police have raided the offices of russia's richest woman you're going about your you know is the wife of moscow's fall a murderer who was sacked by present dmitri medvedev last year we want to see you the president of explains what's behind this raid. officials are saying that these searchers are part of an investigation looking into the embezzle mint of thirteen billion rubles which is over four hundred forty million u.s. dollars from the bank of moscow which is russia's fifth largest bank and they see that you and about to know the wife of moscow's former mayor. or directly connected to the scase which actually started in december investigators believe that the investment was conducted through a loan deal between the bank of moscow and several if you go up in companies and

they say that the money simply ended up on personal bank account not what's also interesting is that investigators say that this transaction happened on the same day as government allocated around fifteen billion rubles to the bank of moscow for other purposes and there's already speculation that this state money may have been used by about two to cover up the debts of a company in teko for recent years both the union the and you to school of moscow's former mayor have been subjected to controversy although neither of them have been found guilty of any illegal activities there's a lot of speculation that you know who is the russia's richest woman and the only female billion in the country she was able to gain this fortune with the help of her husband's resources as the mayor of moscow her company and also always got the

most attractive deals in the city when it comes to its development and what's also interesting is that since stopped being the mayor of moscow into also stopped getting all these good deals. and her lawyer so deny all the accusations saying that the investigators have absolutely no grounds for such claims even the martin a says that neither she or her company in teko were connected or involved. in any criminal activities and said that these searchers and this case crush on her and her husband meanwhile the investigators say that they're ready to call up everybody in the including for questioning if it is necessary. europe is kind of reporting that the renowned a former russian agent anna chapman will add a dash of glamour to the country's space program the redhead now wants to try her hand in designing by creating new uniforms for the space industry when it's.

over to find out on this. and a chaplain she's going to fingers and quite a few pies and she took tell us about this this latest venture. celebrities are taking center stage in business it seems so and on a chapman is just the lead trying to cash in on your v.a.p. status well to begin with she registered your name as a trademark so now officially she can sell her name as a brand to jewelry called so put in drinks producers and the latest of your creative ideas will be reflected in a collection of cloth sports bras course most people spacemen on the ground at a space controls and also the country's largest straining santa will be trussed up in what we believe might be very glamorous and outfits it's not specified though in what capacity issue will be participating as a designer for sure to take part in the projects financially would not have told the last year for the first time in her life on

a chaplain visited the baikonur space cosmodrome in kazakhstan where. a rocket launched a into orbit and perhaps it was there where. inspiration looks around at those brave men and decided that their next mission will be to make them look fabulous while she's been in the center of the biggest spying crisis between the u.s. and russia but it seems since then her career really is going from strength to strength tell us more about that. well since july last year when she was deported from the united states of america it seems that the song christmas service has become the least kept secret in russia and the failure to spy embarks on a career of self promotion tough in italy she was offered a job on television she's now hosting a t.v. program where she's supposedly uncovering the world's secrets she was also appointed to an advisor to the foreign service bank which shares the initials with

the country's a top secret service the afa is beyond just recently she joined a pro kremlin youth movement so yes it seems that these days she's here and there and everywhere this failed spy on the child could reflect very much and before that you can't even approach of reporting there from central moscow well later on this. talk about schemes selling fictional forests for money and how this affects farmland but first let's get the latest now from the world of business from the retreat that's coming up next. thanks very much bill indeed gazprom is joining the elephant oilfield project in libyan assets will deal with italian energy company and now the gas giant will get thirty three point three percent or half of any stake in the project worth around one hundred seventy billion dollars in return any will be given access to energy projects in russia the deal was sealed during russian president dmitry medvedev his visit still has to be approved by libyan authorities. take

a look at the markets and new applications for jobless benefits in the u.s. rising more than expected so we did see a negative opening but it seems that this data is not so gloomy as it seemed before so we're seeing some kind of recovery in the u.s. markets european stocks however are lower marginally stable europe's biggest defense contractors be a systems is down three point four percent after its profit missed estimates. here in russia definite change of mood by the end of the session they would have to gains in the morning stocks ended the session in the red most of the blue chips were losing at the close but burbank was up slightly on the news that it could sell off its oil related assets worth one point two billion dollars as soon as this year gazprom is down two percent despite securing their assets swap deal with any and parliament's al is losing its earlier gains as the price of gold reached of

thirteen hundred eighty two dollars pro-choice. russia's leading search engine yandex has landed top fifty most innovative companies in twenty eleven placed higher than global i.t. giants i.b.m. and microsoft fast company magazine which compiled a list of what yandex at twenty six place on the list of the most innovative firms in the world this year this is the first time yandex was included in the list noted for its prowess in search systems that bypassed amazon which took second place in the list last year and the top three spots were taken by apple twitter facebook. russian entrepreneur your email that was successfully invested into social networking sites like facebook groupon and zynga all on the aforementioned innovation list he's planning to invest in startups in russia d.s.t. global c.e.o. admitted he would be facing challenges but claims russian skilled labor is

a key factor in his decision. other countries have had starts like us you know they're much more advanced in on the technology front but russia has an advantage in human capital it was the basic advantage if you look at the wall championship in programming the russian teams won six out of the last ten years so russia is going the wrong russian talent is actually very highly regarded globally and you will be able to watch the full interview with spotlight next week well that's the headline.

is he.

if you're just joining us a very warm welcome this is. top stories at this hour frustration with reaches a boiling point across the middle east and north africa as protesters push for change at the same time the gypsies are starting to question the outcome of their own the. us military is fighting tooth and nail to hold on to its multi-billion dollar budget cuts will cost lives but some say americans. many on the edge of poverty. economic woes and political turmoil because of a battles a tarnished image on its third anniversary since declaring independence from serbia . radical. party back with more news more developments in the meantime join us in a couple of moments for the latest edition of the cars report where

a host will be discussing how schemes selling virtual forests are actually affecting real that's coming up shortly. for the full story we've got. the biggest issues get a human voice face to face with the news makers. guys are there says the kaiser report you know the value of real farms and.