for mation back to washington this point of view is supported by some of the documents allegedly sent by u.s. diplomat jeff rafter. when under spog rasmussen was looking for closer ties with the collective security treaty organization made up of former soviet states the us was quick to veto the idea after a private dialogue with the u.s. representative to nato rasmussen took all mention of the two organizations growing closer out of his address to the alliance in two thousand and nine but why would the us try to pressure its allies. as one of nato is key players with the u.s. tries to prevent the alliance from growing too close to the russia in the former soviet bloc because the region is of strategic interest to america but they of course would prefer to build exclusive bilateral relationships the strong ties between two military organizations such as nato in the c.s. is not in u.s. interests. this is an odds with the image of the alliance tries to project

a strong union where every opinion matters even the people in the street understand that washington is calling the shots so. left right left right we're much. this is what is happening in reality that people know the documents published so far haven't exactly uncovered anything groundbreaking but if every member in nato is supposedly equal it has raised questions over whether the u.s. will really trust the alliance at all gas trainers are about r t. now the wave of anti-government protests continues to rage across the greater middle east tucker square has been once again filled with people in the egyptian capital you can see live pictures here of what looks like thousands of people inside troll karo there president mubarak of course quit last week meanwhile clashes have continued across yemen in what's now the eighth day of protest protesters there have been

using social networks to call for as many people as possible to hit the streets and what's been dubbed a day of rage well in libya at least twenty four people have been killed as police are reported to use firearms in various cities and in bahrain mourners chanted anti-government slogans after security forces dispersed thousands of rioters in the center of the capital manama the opposition reports at least three were killed and more than one hundred injured many acts hurt my view darrius. says that although the region is in turmoil it's hard to say just how fundamental the changes will be . these are revolts and not revolutions yet people's mindsets or revolutionary they want change they're fed up with these a revolt until the structures in place change it would be considered a revolution so in order for democratic position to occur people need to elect their officials right now we're not seeing that we're seeing the status quo in

egypt the military state and all those things changed it's a formal change was the mubarak was a part of the military the military hosni mubarak who won the united states and its allies are pleading their backs what they're doing right now is something that we call creating a town or discourse town or discourses that have party in governance and in opposition to both sides now i'm not saying that the protests are genuine the protests are absolutely genuine and organic but the fact is that the united states is trying to. opposition figures into position the wise men in egypt which are an elected individuals. are part of the status quo part of the regime in fact we did nothing when mubarak was in power. and as those protests rage across the middle east debate is heating up over which country is going to be next and thing its leader toppled later today in quotes talk we don't love our last has gas if iran is

likely to follow the examples of tunisia and egypt or whether that would just be wishful thinking from western governments. but what the risks facing. as we talk about massive changes going on in the arab world part of the problem is that no one knows the extent of the opposition because most of the law to go off this leaders will force on the ground after the last of the demonstrations in june two thousand and nine after the election so the true it's true left of discontent with the government remains very very hard to quantify actually so no one's really said on this program it i'll ask you the question this point blank as i always do are people tired of having the islamic republic of iran i didn't vote for mr imagination i've said this on numerous occasions there's it's clear but there's no doubt that he is highly popular throughout the country every province that he goes to is like a rock star you have tens if not hundreds of thousands of people who surround his

but it's easy is really his here would also probably regime demonstration just for them to do and that's not true if that was true then the gyptian regime could have done that no it's it's obvious that it's that's not the case. and. well two astronauts have carried out their second walk on a virtual surface of mars as part of a unique project replicating a trip to the raw. planet and we can now get some expert insight from bringing a cell he joins us from moscow and us from the european space agency thanks for being with i hope we can get a closer look at some of the pictures of what happened earlier today can you just explain to us what we're seeing there so we have to assume. this is. from russia. from china doing their second walk and you see

a simulated martian surface which is no more than forty square meters and what we see of the two when the space suits which are produced close to what we would expect for real martian martian mission and what the two were doing is also what we would expect first humans doing on mars namely collecting soil samples and preparing them to pretty simple speak home could you just take us through what exactly we're seeing right now there some kind of cord that if we could just bring those pictures back you know we have the cord which are ordinary people that don't understand of course. this is all for me if the cord which of course would not be there or on the real mars and the core supplies to us to know it's. electricity and also if there are of course in the real martian mission that

all would be in the big pick there to us to know it's carry on there. yes. now currently cosmonauts and astronauts spanned opportunity six months in space onboard the i.a.s. that's here in this simulation we're talking about eighteen months how do you think this crew is coping so far. they're doing very well that. everybody was really surprised that everything is going to go everything one of the reasons for that it's. really very interesting call of simulating the first wark on the mars what we can see you know is that the two are going to take a break in this special chairs because each of the space you would see is a board thirty five killer gone. also if you would expect a real mission. we could expect to after ten or fifteen minutes astronauts would have to take

a small break. now i know this simulation is trying to be as realistic as possible what about these astronauts phycologist do you think at some point they really feel like they're on the red planet. well i mean the. major point here is that there really everybody of them is really focused on their toes and that's the main reason why this is so real and so close to reality. now just by this activity we understand a real prep to maurice remains quite a distant prospect can you take us through that for our audience who might be wondering what this all means. well but you always have to do a first step and this is a very good first step because it is very clear that. a mission a man mission to mars would be international it's very good that this simulation is also an international simulation with european participation tourney's

participation. if you look at the future you know that right now in the process of process extending the international space station for another ten years and then afterwards we would do maybe the next steps but this is no discussion which would be the exactly the next steps for human spaceflight now just that briefly but u.s. is making one of the biggest contributions to space exploration but we don't see any u.s. astronauts in this crowd why is that. well it is so there is no specific reason for there it is just. there is a crew of six and it's of course really a russian project or if it's a mission of participation. has quite good relations with the in situ for biomedical problems and that might be the reason why we are involved but there is no particular exclusion of anybody from the project and in fact nasa is

participating scientifically but not driven through their own astonishment dr rene purcell from the european space agency thank you very much for breaking that down for us. and we're bringing you the latest developments on that story both here and on our web site and for those with a thirst for a little more cosmic wonder there's plenty more at r.t. dot com including joining the ranks of the superheroes he regards legendary trip to space gets really cold once again this time in a comic convention. so these that hard rock russia's president and prime minister have been checking out

one of the snow tracks that will be used for such as twenty fourteen winter olympics. the switched on the right music deep purple. and poets and went see part of the european ski cop being held this week in one of the region's most beautiful ski resorts but apart from the skiing the teams seem to enjoy the soundtrack for the event featuring deep purple particularly the president is known for his affection one. did not shy away from the crowd some who managed to grapple with countries and. now while most americans are struggling hard to overcome the hardships of the recession the profits of national banks continue to rise j.p. morgan is among those cashing in and its contract to process food step payments that's helping its on its way or two very important i have found out how the rich benefit off the back of the poor. americans are generally known for their

healthy appetite some eat what they crave while others like gabrielle jemma can't use the food stamps here for me to express of only eat what is affordable is there a way to give me two dollars worth. of these you have to go look for the sixty one year old is unemployed and maintains a monthly food budget of two hundred dollars governor is among the forty three million americans relying on federal food subsidy here's. the electronic benefit transfer card allows food stamp recipients to spend their allowance the plastic lifeline for the hungry and unemployed is also a money maker for j.p. morgan chase the largest processor of food stamp benefits in the u.s. meaning an increase in food stamp recipients equals more profit for the investment bank every time i use my debit card goldman sachs or j.p. morgan in this case make a little money off of my transaction j.p.

morgan is responsible for the fact that i want to apply so it doesn't surprise me that every every aspect. of this program and everything else has been privatized j.p. morgan chase provides food stamp debit cards in twenty six states and the district of columbia the firm is paid per customer and in the state of indiana j.p. morgan makes roughly one hundred eighty six thousand dollars per month critics say the investment bank is making a fortune off american poverty as long as the out of line rate remains high as long as families are struggling there's sort of this perverse incentive for j.p. morgan chase to continue to benefit off of high unemployment and they're living up to this person so no because in many states they're actually offshoring jobs related processing steps to save money. j.p. morgan has been routing benefit card customer service calls to india where

employees reportedly earn no more than three fifteen hour. meanwhile in the u.s. the business of economic hardship nearly fourteen million americans like every oh are unemployed bailed out to the tune of twenty five billion dollars in two thousand and eight j.p. morgan has bounced back reporting a seventeen point eight billion dollar profit in two thousand and ten the same success can be said for the people forty percent of food stamp recipients are working americans unable to keep up with the cost of living. archie new york. michael prysner from the new the former party for socialism and liberation in the u.s. believes banks that place the burden of the crisis on ordinary americans are the only ones to blame what's happening is there's a budget deficit there's an economic crisis and it's a budget deficit because of the banks this is a crisis that we know was created by lehman brothers by city big this is a crisis created by the super rich but what's happening now is that it is

a demonization of public sector workers of steelworkers of teachers of nurses as if they are the ones that created the crisis as if it somehow their fault now the burden of this crisis is burden of this budget deficit is being shouldered on working families the people that need help the most while the millionaires and billionaires who created the crisis are experiencing record profits and the argument of all these right wingers and tea partiers around the country is their argument is in support of those multimillionaires and billionaires who contribute absolutely nothing. seventeen minutes past the hour let's take a look at some other major headlines from around the world a suicide car bombing in the eastern afghan city of course has killed at least eleven people including twelve two police i should say and wounded thirty others the incident took place at a roadside checkpoint believe say they grew suspicious of the bomber and opened fire prompting him to detonate his explosives officials i blame the taliban who frequently target security checkpoints. there's been

a second day of violence in southeastern turkey after riots marked the twelfth anniversary of the capture of a prominent kurdish rebel leader protestors for old stones and petrol bombs at police in the city of jarba cure who responded with tear gas and water cannons several people were arrested the protesters accused security forces of being too heavy handed during demos earlier this week over abdullah continued imprisonment. japan has called an early halt to the well hunting season following continued pressure by whaling groups tokyo has ordered its fleet home but activists say they will continue their activities until it returns to the port fleet consisting of four ships aim to kill almost a thousand wells this winter commercial whaling has been banned for almost two decades but it is allowed for the purposes of scientific research. and while

endangered whales have been given no brief for spite from japanese dinner plates there's a different kind of eco crisis unfolding in the amazon oil corporations have been dumping toxic chemicals in ecuadorian forests for decades destroying biodiversity and threatening the existence of indigenous populations our special report is coming your way in less than fifteen minutes here's a quick look. and

you can watch that special report later today here on our t.v. well israelis and palestinians have been long time and it means but for mothers who are desperate to save their sick children the conflict takes a back seat and israeli clinic is saving thousands of lives of youngsters from many neighboring countries even those israel is at war with are jews poles reports. every our way is touch and go for fourteen months don't know whose little heart was born with a hole in it without the operation in this hospital my son would have died and in the next ward fourteen year old one yell who was almost did when she was wheeled in

one of five iraqi children flown from baghdad to a man and then driven across the border to jerusalem she was almost that she was so sick that she could not walk very talk she was very these parents face the most difficult decision of their lives bring their children to israel a country at war with this and risk punishment and even death back home or prepare for the alternative possibly losing their child initially it was very difficult for them because i was there in america and the parents were very anxious they didn't know what to expect i was very scared to come to israel very frightened. and she had good reason to be her country rock forbids its citizens from traveling to israel just fire them there is there might be a layover in another country like i know for instance from africa they come in there because it's the only place in africa that was. before the israeli doctors

that treat these arab children the decision is simple doing what they think is right to do and doing anything. in the last fifteen years more than two and a half thousand trolldom have been brought here on third and created half of them come from gaza the rest come from iraq indonesia and across africa the main goal of this organization is to help developing countries create the medical ability to treat children with heart problems by themselves in order to achieve that we bring children from these developing countries to israel we also bring doctors from these developing countries for training here in israel and it's a vision that's paying off not only is so easy you turn to be grateful to the israeli doctors that saved her daughter's life she's now brave enough to tell her neighbors back home. what i will tell everyone we were in israel and how these saved my daughter's life i'm no longer afraid to say it because my daughter is alive. and so while the politicians continue to have

a go at each other and israel and her arab neighbors go further apart on the ground at least in this spot a very different story is unfolding policy r.t. . business is next here in our with your yeah. that's right time for a business update a very warm welcome and organization has become the key issue of the any economic forum being held in russia's eastern siberia in his opening speech finance minister aleksey could really stressed the importance of creating a new development model for russia's economy in the post crisis period he admitted the innovative scenario is hardly possible if the budget deficit continues to lie at two percent of g.d.p. over the next decade. has more. at the moment it's still not clear how expensive russia is more nice a sugar and diversification

a way from or the gas will be russia's economic development ministry says it will not be cheap and if we russia wants to double the share off its high tech sector in the economy took twenty percent of g.d.p. it will have to camp out war which means it will have to borrow and might triple its public that's two third's of per cent of g.d.p. in the next fifteen years it might also mean that russia will have to leave with budget deficit for another decade however the economic development ministry is made up potence russia as the finance ministry says that it wants to save more and to have known the deficit budget already in four years. we should realise that in the next few years our economy will be wakin in more difficult conditions we'll see wrote the modus capsule in flows and facing all this we will have some work out a new development trend with low inflation and

a stable currency rate working issues and what did it so we hope that this forum might represent a great opportunity to all of the country's top financial i think shells to decide on the russia future. such on the political reporting and russia's investment company basic element and china studying sign chemical five a firm plan to invest three hundred million dollars in watching noising and expanding a pulp and paper mill and russia siberia presidential aide which believes asia is becoming one of the top priority regions for russian businesses that can provide huge sources of demand and capital but if we speak about specific projects especially infrastructure once you deed we can use long term investments from korea japan and china and in this way help develop the infrastructure of savior and the far east. let's have a look at how the. good software in that sawing europe of. the mining sector is

mixed america is too and help to send down and that's despite the company's profit jumping ninety three percent in high metal prices be a nice systems extending losses from the previous session wanted war and its washes about lower defense spending in twenty eleven. and in russia they are ts in my six soft flush to negative or than gold prices are higher for the situation in the middle east is definitely edging uncertainty on the russian markets but some a look at some figures show has a mixed continues to gain for a third straight session to look oil is on proposed changes in the way the russian industry is taxed the russian oil industry is taxed high for always down almost two percent on the news of planned measures to slow the pace of atrocity rate increases . and the spread between brant crude and light switch world prices has reached record disparity kristen just corona order and gas the

equity analyst at standard and poor's equity research explains why. we have record high inventory said cushing oklahoma we're w.t.r. . it coupled with that in the u.k. in the north sea we've had a lot of operational problems a lot of fields have been shut down and the fields are in decline with that you have on rest in the middle east and brant is actually the crude price to which north african crudes are indic coupled with that what you have is that traders have seen the differential and they know that it's usually temporary so what they do with they sell the spreads they buy. and sell brant now the situation works when we traverse says you make money but as long as it doesn't reverse you're actually losing money so a lot of traders are holding on to what you might call paper barrels of oil as the

spread widens they buy more spread bets so until the situation starts reversing itself you're going to have higher storage of oil in the u.s. you're going to have all these paper barrels that are in limbo and the threat of these rupture and to oil supplies in europe and asia due to problems in the middle east will keep this differential going. christine to his status and paul's equity research and that's it for know you are up today and join me in less than one last time for more business news.

for entertainment is on the way but first let's check in on our top stories wiki leaks latest memo says. that the u.s. has been snooping on nato is top official and using its leverage to confront closer ties with russia whistleblowers revelations have prompted further question marks over the way the alliance works. the way of venting government protests raging across the middle east gathers pace dozens of rioters have been killed in libya hundreds are injured in the capitals of german and after clashes with police and. also the crew of a simulated space flight to mars take their second walk on a mocked up surface of the red planet it's part of an eighteen month long program

which aims to study the psychological of facts a possible next step. next as promised it's time for a cultural show moscow out this week martin andrews discovers how to make life more affordable in the russian capital known to be one of the most expensive cities in the world. hello and welcome to the program no moscow is famous for being one of the most expensive cities in the world so on this week's show and we'll see just how low we can find prices in the us the couple there are hundreds if not thousands of deals of sales and discounts to be found here at a first location the thirty six ruble store the good it comes to.