which were behind the brutal crackdown on protesters used supplies made by british companies to clear the protests well human rights activist barnaby pace says the u.k. has been reckless in its arms so. we can see across the middle east that the government is selling to repressive regimes that. this could happen to any a point in and we've got to be aware that when we sell the both non-lethal and lethal equipment those will be used and. generally at some point they will be used on someone innocent the u.k. government needs to seriously reconsider how approaches in the first place not only have these arms be licensed to be so diocese in the case of bahrain. they are actively promotion of the u.k. government and actively promotes arms sales to a number of the presses of regimes this very weekend the u.k. government is sending representatives out to the launch. it's called i debts. which

the industry trade body in the u.k. claims ten percent of its executives will be british at this spare and the u.k. actively encourages is these companies to sell including the very equipment that is being used to protest this in the middle east these weapons all widely misused in the u.k. is a. criteria which look good on paper very rarely applied with any rate. well the mass outrage in the middle east erupted of course after the popular evils in tunisia and egypt which brought down the embattled leaders and while people gathered in cairo's tahrir square on friday to mark a week since president mubarak was toppled middle east analyst james downs though says it's too early to celebrate victory. this hasn't really been a revolution in a traditional sense mubarak's power structure is his cronies are still really in a similar place as they were before this a wall the battle to oust mubarak has been won the war over the future of egypt

before and we see what happens next in terms of real constitutional changes changes to the state of emergency whether political parties can rise out of the ashes. tearing isn't the genie has well and truly been left out of the bottle and reverberations from what happened in tunisia and now being felt in every single state and i think that you know as the persian tales go if there were to be three wishes from the genie out of the bottle the governments would wish that the populations would accept the compromises they've made the population seem to wish that their leadership disappeared and the international community seems to be busy wishing that it knew which side of the fence to sit on when radio host and film director alex jones says that one factor forcing people out onto the streets is dollar inflow sent and the self-serving policies are banks. as the global economy is flooded with dollars as the private philip reserve hyper inflates the dollar it's going to drive commodities and so in places like egypt and many other

areas you're going to have people who are making on average two dollars a day or less. basically with empty bellies we're going to start rioting and protesting and austerity globalism is also coming to western europe it's coming to places like ireland because everything is now going to the offshore private central banks the system hopes to use all of this new furor in the streets as a pretext to basically roll in another layer of intensified police states. where the media focus is shifting across the protests sweeping through the middle east later we asked people in new york whether the media has lost sight of that means for the country's began in egypt and tunisia. it's all about money about where in which the tomato story is totally gone i mean that's kind of those type of journalists that fit in the field reporting journalist it seems like that's the story with all of them they love to kind of shine just as much of

a peripheral light on what they went through to get the truth out and that's that's journalism. now the u.s. may be the self-proclaimed land of the free but it's also one of the world's top jale or is with its prison population a quarter of the world's total number behind bars our season especially a turk and i met a former inmate who's calling against a prison system which he claims is built. the parking lot where the prison cell where the man inside it the inmate michael to bond moved in out of his own free will michael spent thirty hours building his prison cell made out of plywood and even parts of his own homes rooftop his generator strategically placed right here keeps the cell lit and warm throughout this cold winter months the main goal of the man once convicted of armed robbery to bring down the number

of prisoners in the u.s. slavery still exists in the united states of america to him and his supporters in sleeve to our over two million prisoners packing jails across the u.s. a country with the highest prison population in the world. and use the same in the same area were. discussed in the movie is not somewhere i want to be in the building here the ex-con is now teaching children about the horrors of prison life to deter them from crime in the future. the self-made convict says one of the biggest problems is american prisons are big business and thirty three thousand dollars a year. is like this kind of like. for every rock you bring me. how many rocks would you bring and in this diary khana

meet many youngsters are stuck between a rock and a hard place you can't lock the whole country and especially during a recession you know poverty is synonymous if you've got poverty you want to have michael also cites a flawed justice system for the high conviction rates especially of the poor with lawyers selling freedom to the highest bidder if you can't afford to pay for the case you want to get crazy. where is the counterpart the money is a little bit of a problem. across the u.s. but less than five percent of the world's population but almost a quarter of the prison population of the planet the man will remain in his cell until the end of the month by which time he hopes his message will have hit home until then look at a thawing now we all in the home and i think you're going up r.t. philadelphia. well glenn ford editor of the political magazine black agenda report believes that imprisonment is a profitable commercial and political tool used to control social and racial unrest

the people who would in slave black folks and the people in my circles don't consider that the main impetus to mass incarceration is money it is a political tool to control folks but if you want to do that you have to get large segments of the society on your side you have to make prison profitable for lots of people lots of companies and you also make it profitable for little towns in upstate new york and downstate illinois towns that would be suffering serious terrible unemployment if they didn't have a prison in their county so you you you you do two things you whipped up a and hysteria which is really racial hysteria and the numbers show it around mainly drugs and you create a profit motive for people to vote to incarcerate masses and masses of black people

and it works and that's why we have by far the worst imprisonments record on the planet. you're watching our t.v. live from moscow still to come for you this hour but wizard's unlikely resting place. i played the ball demo. that metairie where harry potter himself is buried alongside william shakespeare find out how their graves ended up in israel that's coming up in a few minutes. also this hour our military expert explains why it looks unlikely the u.s. will ease off on military action in afghanistan despite the new approach announced by washington. but first a pants chief cabinet secretary has flown over russia's lesser islands to draw attention to tokyo's claim on the area the move comes after recent visits by russian officials to the eastern most region earlier russia described japan's

radical approach towards the territories as unacceptable and announced reequipping korea's military garrisons and islands in the pacific ocean were handed to russia as part of an agreement at the end of the second world war however it seems that other parties are interfering in the dispute adding fuel to the fire washington once again underlined its position over the lesser creel chain saying the territory belongs to japan well to discuss this further i'm now joined in the studio by fred we are he's a reporter for the christian science monitor here in moscow. and became russia's territory following the second world war as i just said why is washington revising history and the outcome essentially of world war two well nobody is doing anything new right now they're repeating the same tired old arguments that have been embedded in this dispute since the end of world war two it does seem to go after world war two there were a lot of territory a lot just what's most of them are no longer controversial this is practically the

only one left and it seems to be because there are some legal ambiguity in the case . so those four islands. i don't i'm not qualified to sort them out for you but they they certainly have been recognised the soviet union in one thousand nine hundred fifty six. did meet with the japanese and they actually agreed on a compromise that two of the islands would be returned to japan and that remains the benchmark that remains the way that this issue could probably be settled ultimately. and that case in one nine hundred fifty six it was the americans who torpedoed that agreement by telling the japanese that if you let the soviets keep to those islands why that would probably mean we would have a claim on okinawa. and the japanese backed out of it then and so this problem has been frozen in this configuration ever since then and what we see in the last

several months is an escalation of rhetoric and these nationalist gestures what your story today is is is clearly nationalistic grandstanding. but the russian response to that is a little bit like the pot calling the kettle black because there has been some grandstanding on the russian side as well and i read in the press today that the lady spy and a chaplain will go to the through islands to the lesser cruel islands next month and plant a russian flag there so that's not an official initiative but it's exactly the same kind of inflammatory behavior that ratchets this thing up but you think this dispute in a sense could start a domino effect i mean if the entire world and all nations that once had territory in a place that is now another country mexico and the us russia and alaska isn't in a dangerous trend. you know i think it's confined as they said there are certain

things in this dispute that keep it alive certain legalities and so the russian response to that or at least the sort of brick wall russian response that the japanese should remember who was world war two isn't very helpful here there are these disputes and they need to be sorted out and as i said in one thousand fifty six the two of them in the spirit reason were able to come to an agreement and at least a few months ago russian diplomats were saying that that exact same deal could still be on the table but it requires the right kind of political will on both sides and a spirit of reason and compromise which we do not see much of it. japan's chief cabinet secretary has called on the japanese people to be more vocal over the territorial claims what's your take on the math. tokyo if you think well this isn't going to go anywhere they have hurt feelings they haven't done well in their territorial dispute with china recently and. there there are probably domestic

political reasons why this thing is bubbling up in japan politicians love the territorial dispute this is exactly the kind of thing they can wrap themselves in the flag and act militant and uncompromising and that. i guess is a vote getter but it is absolutely no help when the only i mean it is the sort of process you do see in the run up to wars but i don't think anybody imagines that there's going to be a war over this the only way out is for them to dial it back both sides by the way dial it back and sit down and hammer out a compromise let's talk about the u.s. recent u.s. involvement in this the territory's use by russia as a strategic. for strategic purposes i should say do you think the u.s. is afraid of having a powerful neighbor i mean why else why are they getting in but i don't think

ownership of those four little sand bars basically could be more than sand bars but it is going to make a big difference in the strategic balance in the world i don't think it's a boat that why then does washington care just briefly in the cold war washington supported the japanese position for cold war reasons and they scuttled that agreement in one thousand fifty six. now i think they're just following their their own well established foreign policy line i think that's all it is there's no reason in washington about this either all right fred we are from the christian science monitor thanks for. now a major crackdown on organized crime has been triggered across russia authorities are targeting gangs covered up by officials in small towns or does that is biologically reports on a brutal slaying that brought the issue back into the public's attention. these graves a reminder of one of the most horrific crimes in russia a world farmer his companion and turned others mostly women and children were

killed one. in the village of short stay in russia itself but investigators were even more shocked when they discovered that this brutal slaying is just the tip of the iceberg the crime where we go thought it was worth years mass murder the boys were unable to why and go through the numerous acts of murder rape and extortion but they have been a journalist who became with all wars and heard as they directed the earth britons at one particular local gang all suspects were also well respected members of the village situated in the cross in the region oleksandr called each officer of the organized crime fighting unit of the local police reportedly provided to cover up for the gang its leader sub believed to be sort of gates of pork and his aide sort of gives it perverse boot dip produce of the local council and it is said there were also dozens of mafia dogs recruited from. perfectly legitimate security for

that young above all says their crimes could have been prevented in two thousand and five she informed local police involved the gangsters but they got away something that may happen again. it's not only birds of dogs people it's about the ones who protected them and they have doubts that these times they'll end up in jail or get proper punishment definitely have serious connections the. trigger to crack down across the country on organized crime in the republic of bush got to stun ninety three people were arrested on new year's. even on drug related charges the gang was supported by police and laundered more than one and a half million dollars a month also the murder of the mafia kingpin nicknamed han in the southern russian city of may also lead to corrupt policemen and local officials it is all part of a wider government pledged to tackle organized crime and corruption. is a principle to be everything in order yes it is enough for years time is possible

if you change the heads of the law enforcement agencies make the courts work and restore the system district organized crime units and there's the whole good the brutality of the gangs and corruption of some officials can be overcome and russia if journalists and crime experts to listen to. just a lot ski are crossing the region. dot com is where you can find out you can check out i should say all our stories blogs and analysis whenever you like here's a look at what's lined up for you at our team dot com today this race man the one we finally set foot on mars have begun their groundbreaking exploration of the simulated bread on it. and find out how the russian president and prime minister have been checking out some song snow for the twenty fourteen winter olympics in sochi but some not so song in the opera.

now while the dramatic uprising in egypt was unfolding you as mainstream media gave it wall to wall coverage but once president hosni mubarak was gone so too was the interest from t.v. and newspapers the resident show host laurie harf honest talks to people on the streets of new york about the media's approach. after the success of protesters in egypt the media has quickly shifted their focus to other areas of unrest do they even care about the outcome or just their next big scoop this week let's talk about that i think the meat of the story is gone. but the meat of the work still has yet to be done right there's no money in that. that's the bottom line i mean if it's all about money and power and which of the

meat of the story is totally gone is that ok are we ok with that does that mean that the media's doing its job. i don't think they're allowed to be doing their job . i mean basically it's you know governments and politics will control the media and about how you look at it and what people say it's just the way i go just the way it is but it's been like that for a long time will it always be like that will come and go i mean used to be the yellow journalism of the eighteen ninety's and then like when they had to do you know the three major major networks with the f.c.c. regulations and they got more normalized now with you know like anybody can publish anything they're going to go after sensationalism again and opinionated journalism i mean that's kind of the those type of journalists the feet in the field reporting journalists it seems like that's the story with all of them they love to kind of shine just as much of a peripheral light on what they went through to get the truth out and that's that's journalism is that more important than getting the truth out no absolutely not but

i don't think you can blame the press and moving on to areas that the people are more interested in because that sanny where they're going to make money and they're going to survive but you know you guys who you have p.b.s. and we have stuff like that to heart and that's why we have to keep paying taxes so that we can have. motivated by making a profit whether or not you believe the media actually cares about the outcome of such uprisings the bottom line is that. if you can make sure you get your information from the many media there at the at. the u.s. secretary of state has said a surge in diplomacy not military action will bring lasting peace to afghanistan and pakistan this comes as the u.s. congress debates cuts to the country's massive defense budget but i guess the military contributor thinks washington's move to loosen its positions in central

asia is just window dressing. hillary clinton has stated charile times three d. concept that is diplomacy to france and to development now let's get a reality check and have a look at the current budget debates of the us senate and congress then you will realize that despite all the sleep service to this solved paul where all of the state department diplomatic importance the state department all real budget that is forty seven billion dollars is even less than the pentagon pays for its health insurance that is fifty billion dollars down each composers only one tenth of their gigantic u.s. military expenditure and that is seen in fact not in wishful thinking reflects their real sequence and importance in the three d. equation. let's take a look now at some other stories making headlines around the world at the united nations the west has vetoed

a draft resolution which would have condemned the israeli building of settlements as illegal all fourteen other members of the security council approve the motion which insisted israel stops construction in the west bank and east jerusalem it's seen as another blow to the mideast peace process with the palestinians now saying they'll reassess their role in the talks this is the first un veto used by the obama administration. the military helicopters crashed in the mountains in northeast colombia killing an army general and three soldiers and witness this crime scene the helicopters are all out of control before coming down and bursting into flames a military official at the scene confirmed that all onboard had died there was poor weather at the time although the cause of the crash is still being a fabulous. now while blockbusters are known to draw huge crowds a grave might seem an unlikely tourist attraction unless the person buried there is one harry potter but it's not what you're thinking this is the final resting place

of a teenage british soldier killed decades ago which isn't stopping wizard friends from walking to visit and as polis later found out this potter story has anything but a magic ending. harry potter is good and varied in israel but before you die hard potter fans collapse from the shock we're talking about a very different harry and a somewhat different plot this hour we both who you signed up to the army to the british army when he was only sixteen or seventeen years old and he did it by lying about his age but he couldn't cheat death and died in battle near hebron in one thousand nine hundred eighty nine potter fans found the grave that will far as he's had long forgotten but metaphor memories. a few years ago we started getting all these phone calls we didn't even know the greve existed. but word spread fast and now the. literally little known israeli town of rambler is firmly on the tourist map potter's grave attracts as much attention as ancient archaeological digs in the

area. the two parters are similar in name and age and both are heroes but that's where it is the real harry potter was from a village near birmingham england and was dispatched to british mandated palestine a year after joining the army he was a truck drove it brought supplies from jerusalem. and this is the word that you got to. explain as for the world's most famous boy wizard he's fallen foul of israel's rabbis after the last installment of his book was launched during the jewish sabbath many religious jews also forbid the children from reading his tales they say it's pagan content is forbidden in judaism but the reason has nothing to do with her daughter except the hype. her brother contributed to a lot to people interests and paganism in magic because it's cool and

potters not the only illustrious literature figure buried in israel's military cemeteries here interest in him is buried none other than william shakespeare like potter he was also part of the british army and served as a truck driver although he died a few years before potter was born both their tombstones bring a smile of recognition port city r.t. jerusalem. moscow says comfortably in with the top five most expensive cities in the world and it's often believed that if you want to enjoy yourself you'll have to shell out but this week our teams weren't known as discoverers that's not always the case moscow out is focusing on frugality and that's coming your way in just over an hour. finally the film the red october chocolate factory in the heart of moscow is a historic sites and of course you can explore the complex for free you can also find various freebies inside one of the numerous instilling values in this case and happening area demba is a cafe and cinema land has

a suitable inside watch various films some of them in english and yes three each of a schedule on the day of the website's enjoy its house documentary and hollywood movies with no particular trickle. coming up in a few minutes another look at our top stories stay with us. francis

nutritious and delicious products on the price of healthy eating. we need to test these foods toxicity allergenicity immune response lower nutrition and for environmental contamination don't you feel like a lab brought some consider the experiment each human treatment idly significant differences between the g.m. fed that they both at the g.m. . but they weren't treated so well themselves one question means one career you ask one question you could be uncertain and you might or mine. be able to publish it but that's the end of your career.

at five thirty pm time these are the top stories on our team as anti-government protests raids across the middle east and britain get slammed for supplying weapons which are being used to kill and injure demonstrators. and imprison a nation the us has more people in jail than any other country and some ex-con big say it's because big businesses turn prison into profit. also russia's witnessing a crackdown on organized crime a police car options been revealed behind brutal murders but some fear the corrupt official might still get away. and harry potter is dad no it's not the wizard boy from one of the world's best selling books his unlikely burial site in

israel and it tracks crowds of fountain on line. up next our special report on the damage corporations are doing to amazon rain forest and the indigenous tribes living there. why do you believe the locals were affected by cancer when it's letters of. hygiene conditions are terrible actually all the drinking water in eastern ecuador is. we have a mehlis results that show the water contains excrement residues meaning that it comes from the native steph occasions that is what causes cancer and all other illnesses if you constantly drink water with feces.