as los angeles seized by opposition forces in libya nato expresses with great support talking with wolf i says i'm going to stay here in the capital city of tripoli joining me in a few moments and i'll bring you more. france's attempts at a short sharp war in libya on getting president sarkozy the ratings boost he expected but some say it was motivated by imperialist. u.s. political parties keep bickering over the new project credit agencies sell the lot of the country's bad habits so it's a road straight bankruptcy. and george's attempts to project

a democratic image of tarnished the state of its legal system where even lawyers are getting prosecuted and persecute. international news live from our studios here in central moscow this is our teachers past eight pm here in the russian capital and nine and six pm i should say in libya where at least four russian journalists are being captured by rebel forces russia has voiced his concern about the situation and is taking steps to resolve it including asking for help from the nato coalition but our correspondent paula has the latest developments now from libya. two russian journalists working for a popular russian newspaper have been seized by opposition fighters in the east of this country we are hearing that among them is also

a captured russian television crew but we have no independent verification of this and we are receiving some reports that the crew might have been released we have been told that the journalists are now in the city of benghazi the rebel headquarters where they are facing questioning they were able to put through a cord from a satellite phone to the news with but since then all communication has died not this is the first time that we are aware that rebel fighters are actually taken journalists captive normally it's the other way around of anything the opposition forces try the upmost to try and assist journalists so we've seen a very different picture on the other side of the coin with gadhafi soldiers at the moment they have at least foreign journalists in big hands now the russian foreign ministry is following the story very very closely it says it is a very war if that's what the russian foreign minister had to say for so. of course we are worried about the fact that our journalists have been seated eastern libya by the opposition and i think if we can turn to the leadership of countries that

reportedly might have their special forces on the ground this is a serious matter as we don't want to miss a chance which will allow the success of the reason our journalists. on friday the nato secretary general anders fogh rasmussen expressed deep or grave one nato air strike that targeted opposition fighters earlier major said it was not going to issue an apology at that stage and said it might have mistaken me to the rebel fighters but we are hearing from doctors on the ground that five people were killed and more than twenty two people were injured and what we think might have happened is the rebel fighters were trying to make some kind of surprise attack on these men they were equipped with heavy armor and we they were using tanks and this is what we're now hearing from from nato but they did not receive any information before that the rebel plan. we're actually using tanks that's for counting increasingly more difficult for pilots from the skies to be able to tell the difference between rebel fighters and libyan soldiers because more and more they using the same

tactics and the same weaponry the feeling on the ground among those rebel fighters towards may take is go it's growing understand. what we're not hearing from some of the let it be leaders is that nature came to assist them and instead it's actually starting to kill them this is the second time in two weeks of nato has made a mistake last week it killed from thirteen level fighters in a similar incident when it's a strike targets hit rebel fighters instead of gadhafi his men. journalist pepe escobar from the asia times believes the coalition has already blundered badly in its actions in libya should avoid making an even bigger mistake by arming the rebels the nature of going only is nato incompetence number one ok you know what they want they want colo all states of qaddafi forces in the desert place sitting ducks so big can bomb them at will like this is was a replay of theirs it's forum in iraq more than twenty years ago what kind of

resources are going there disguising their remaining tanks and armored personnel carriers inside or around the cities so he's using curial or against the guerrilla the u.s. and the brits basically want to arm the rebels can you imagine if these rebels are armed by the cia. so yes from britain all they're going to measure this is six months we're going to have mujahideen to suit. with the u.s. cutting back its involvement in the airstrikes the mission has become hugely dependent on french jets and it's artie's daniel bushell reports the longer the campaign lost the more french people themselves are beginning to wonder about the reasons for the country's leading role. proles was among the first countries to push for a military solution in libya but now which is of course geneva is justification for going once again on what i call the imperial condominiums a return to quest of africa already having long term connections on the continent

paris told chicky of colonel gadhafi for fighting its military in neighboring chad in the 1980's the challenge against corporations in the region ever since the french quarter. is it a friends party or or is it a sarkozy party see the way that we try to convince the world that he is demanding in this capacity to be their leader. and also the way that it tried to survive in frost reports le pen the gold was put to good invasion already last year the problem today is a schizophrenic voice imperial ambition calculated as the folks with the france's president the move was backed by the french foreign minister a leisure case history of beijing could last days or weeks but months into this week will really be a turning up the longer and harder than once it gets to the political. but.

the fact that these forces still stand the rebel gains only come when he had to veto helping the poor in libya with both human food french and britain page abroad congress nor the government the popularity of power instead of the body continues oppositional both oil is growing these demonstrators say they see through fraud these noble claims that they can claims humanitarian intervention but it's really in paris and in local elections nicolas sarkozy got thumped he's you had people to we're just going to percent of the folks the fridge president hope for ratings lift for. he's got the opposite. because for most. presidents for for the last forty years given france's troubled history in the region many feel our country to be removed with a common past and humiliates against the colonial. countries that have

genuine revolutions genuine grazing and then being able to unite i think that is something which the imperial powers don't really want to see withdrawal speccing it's growing backlash it's full of rules any talk of a quick fix sounds out of it you. see powers. coming up this back to the square where they won egyptians have returned to town here square calling for the prosecution of ousted president mubarak examine the reasons behind the uproar months after he was overthrown also. one of the country's top credit agencies telling the feds something has to get done and it's. growing alarm over america's careless a boring as credit agencies one of a possible downgrade of the country's rating. this story still

to come here for you but first a finish priest is under investigation over his statements against one of the world's most wanted men the model of an online mouthpiece of chechen militants pastor you're mulai was charged with inciting racial hatred right after his interview with us party in which he described a model as a terrorist that despite the fact moderate himself has claimed responsibility for many of russia's worst terror attacks including the recent bombing of moscow's deal with that of airport has also been a longtime critic of a website called the center extremists from the north caucasus openly express their views the website is burned here in russia and many european countries but freely operates in finland for more on this let's cross live now to phil reese is an expert on terrorism and also the author of the book dining with terrorists meetings with the world's most wanted militants thanks very much indeed for joining us here on r.t. tell us what does this actually tell us about the situation in full and does it

actually mean that terrorists and extremists can enjoy freedom of speech their priests can't. well i think this is actually a fascinating case which apart from on russia today it's got very little coverage because it does actually invite questions over the limitations of freedom of speech when should those who encourage acts of terrorism allowed freedom of speech but of course the pastor involved also made criticisms of chechnyans in finland and he's been it's been suggested that he's accused of inciting racial hatred which is another law which has been brought in in most european countries i mean the last decade which again limits and freedom of speech that i think this case is very very important in terms of discussing both of those issues and how they actually relate to the freedom of people to be able to speak out not only was he criticizing the

website but also he was saying that the french authorities refer to a model of one of the world's most wanted terrorists as a president now why do you think that finot would have a different attitude a different stance over america that the rest of the world seems to be providing at the moment. well i mean freedom of speech is something that is it's valued in many countries in including finland but i can tell you that this site would probably not be allowed to be set up in britain and have its website here and that's because britain has brought in laws in the two thousand terrorism act in the two thousand and six terrorism act and i mean it says that any website or any literature and i quote the quote here which glorifies phrases or celebrates political violence anywhere in the world would not be allowed to be to go out would not be allowed to exist in that country now clearly you know finland and i'm not acquainted with finnish law as well as with british law but clearly finland doesn't have that kind

of criteria to limit the rights of sites like this to exist and could be there for accused of harboring terrorism. well it's a it's a difficult question i mean obviously if there are people in finland who have been accused of acts of terrorism and there's evidence against them i think the finnish authorities would require and i'm sure they would cooperate with the russian authorities to find these people i think the trouble is that you've got this gray area you've got basically people who support certain political causes now when does that support for a political cause into a support for violence now clearly if you are supporting those people in the caucuses emirates i think that you are supporting acts of terrorism quite clearly from the things they've done to russia but it's a fine line and obviously other political causes you can debate them you can have discussions and i think these are very valuable so there's

a fine line to be drawn and i think that certainly in britain they decided after two thousand and one to move that line to restrict freedom when he comes to encouraging acts of terrorism but clearly it seems to me finland has not well just briefly if you're talking about acts of terrorism of course russia has been victim of attacks recently a lot of people claiming responsibility for those attacks do you see those recent attacks here as russia's problem or is this global terrorism and if that's the case shouldn't thing them be involved in helping to combat global threat. well certainly the caucus emirates. and dr martineau they are tied in with al qaeda the bin you know the the the resistance the people in the militants and terrorists in the caucasus have always had close ties to afghanistan and i think that unfortunately what this shows is while the globe and the world can talk about

a war on terror in effect a lot of countries still support insurgents in other countries if they feel that their political interests and their leverage over that country need be helped by that and i'm afraid that's a tragic reality of global politics filreis very interesting to talk to thanks so much for joining us here live on r.t. there in london thank you. georgia's legal system is under fire for failing to match its claims of democratic development in the prison is a significant increase since president mikheil saakashvili came to power with only seven acquittals and twelve cells and legal cases over the last year lawyers claim it's practically impossible to get a fair trial. the people of georgia do seem to have the right to speak their mind. but if you're unfortunate enough to be detained it appears that for many all your

rights own right out the window and should the case get to trial there can be very little hope of an acquittal no matter how good your lawyer is she in the last three years managed to in only three cases. statistics thousands of cases heard in georgia's courts you would see that acquittals make less than one percent of the numbers. a recent human rights watch report on changes within georgia's legal system positive steps but there are a lot of concerns as well according to the h.r. w. increasing the prison term for administrative offenses and thirty days to three months come in contradiction with all democratic developments as international organizations insist jail can only be used as a last resort debates about the fairness of georgia's legal system continue but the numbers speak for themselves last year alone out of twelve thousand guilty verdicts only seven work whittles various international surveys show that nearly half of the

population there's no trust in their countries traditional system even the lawyers feel it's a lose lose game understandable since a lot of them end up behind bars themselves. saakashvili doesn't want an independent court system the prosecutor's office is dominant and police are the main instruments of power and political pressure there's no need for justice or lawyers he's trying to influence advocacy and when he fails he arrests or discriminates against lawyers who don't cooperate ever since mikhail saakashvili rose to power with the rose revolution his interests clearly pointed west in a legal system based on fairness and justice does not seem to be a priority. the justice system in georgia today actually measures worse than that but the soviet times. georgia holds first place for the highest number of prisoners to cap it seen europe which is a very somber fact i remember reagan used to call the soviet union the evil empire

and then lead to george bush called georgia beacon of democracy but how does this beacon have five times more prisoners per capita than the evil empire. it certainly seems as though there are some areas where the beacon of truth does not want to shine kasserine as are all righty b.c. georgia by the way as well as what you see on screen here on the we're covering many other stories on our website is r t dot com here's what else is lined up for you right now if you log on a right royal mess the case of the arctic britain's prince harry potter he and a charity expedition team get stuck there you can find out if there was a happy ending. also why skype and g. mail may pose a potential threat to national security in russia the full story on that at r.t. dot com.

the feuding u.s. political parties are once again and good luck over negotiations on the country's budget the dispute is threatening to shut down the entire government which would cost taxpayers almost a billion dollars a day well as artie's lauren lister explains their affairs that federal in action could be the cause of yet another financial crash. well u.s. lawmakers in washington big are over the budget and hurled blame across the aisle for the gridlock calling opposing colleagues relatively small that stream group of logs who are dragging down the budget negotiation process give me a another group of decision makers has been weighing in on the to be one of the country's top credit agencies telling the feds something has to get done this debt ratings agency standard and poor and moody's have been warning for months that the

u.s. debt could threaten the country's golden aaa credit rating telling investors in u.s. bonds essentially they may have to worry about getting paid the u.s. debt problem is big fourteen trillion dollars big and meanwhile the solutions lawmakers are coming up with to solve this problem are small this tiny dot represents even the larger sixty billion dollars in cuts republican lawmakers originally proposed and meanwhile the u.s. government continues to spend a lot more than it takes in resulting in more than a trillion dollars in budget deficit so with all of this there rating agencies as unsustainable and a concern and if the path the u.s. has been on for a while forty three cents of every dollar we spend this year. we've borrowed against the future of continuing on this trajectory of borrowing and spending however would not be an option according to financial analysts if the u.s. was downgraded so what would happen there would be another crisis it would create

global shock waves in part because most models and understanding of the global investment landscape landscape take is their sort of central banker the new us ten year treasury bond as the risk as it is the interest the u.s. pays on its debt is staggering it was one hundred eighty seven billion in two thousand and i'm do you propose or it increases to eight hundred forty four billion that number would grow exponentially faster with a downgrade because the us would likely have to pay higher interest rates to borrow money meaning less money to spend at home then we have to start cutting really aggressively and for many things they're too important for americans really to be able to agree to cut them right now drastic cuts in everything from energy to education to the military whether the u.s. would really be downgraded it is up for debate the u.s. has the exorbitant privilege after all of printing dollars the global reserve

currency to pay its global credit card bill the scarier scenario may be that the u.s. has even reached this point a situation that once would have been unthinkable lauren lyster r.t. washington d.c. tweeted now and thousands of people are once again taking to the streets in protest it comes as a sign of increasing frustration at the military's lack of progress in removing top figures of the previous regime from office well i'm not joined by middle east expert professor mccollum and for a look at why the un rest is rumbling on thanks very much indeed for joining us lottie already we're going to champion this was a successful revolution so what is happening now in egypt why are they protesting. well two months ago mubarak but the regime didn't call president mubarak and his close associates who are probably right all the new regime will be conservation under arrest but in reality people will need to grab it and say you played today.

before so running we learned during the martial turn time we had a military council with a gun to the right it was a little more the closest comrades and. so we've seen a musical talk and at the bottom of society it's got worse much worse economically i understand also they call it the prosecution of our stigma barack is that likely to happen. well it might happen but i can only happen if the present government thought it was a desperate desperate situation. really to throw scapegoats try and harm situation because not all the. problems the people with whom you speak is ministers and generals who pushed him aside. they tried to discredit him by putting him or him on shore because he has a lot more of a brother but look at things not change though isn't there a promise of an election coming up shouldn't patience be the order of the day in. a

way to see some sort of democratic order in place there in egypt. we can see it's only two months since the changes on the other hand a great problem is that people are impatient to change the economy's getting worse . and also people in egypt are you stop all the rigged elections that was one of the sources of discontent with aren't people are saying it's like sack a movie voted on in september it will probably remember they don't have a trial run for introductions first then see how those work before they move on to decide how the head of state will be like the person after with all the hard saying no is more protests an uprising in effect against a military government that we see grizzly things not you. dissipate in any way how the military could react if the opposition does get more violence and that's a first for one who is a danger after all we have seen in syria crap and we see it in bahrain a crackdown we see in yemen i wonder in our results are not getting out and it may

well be you got a lesson to people who determine standard car is all stocks were slipping don't actually have to collapse and we've been on the streets you can disperse and i hope that isn't the case but i fear that seems to be the lesson with the last six weeks of riots installed aren't that many people saying this is a people led revolution the people anything they wanted but now it looks just they haven't got what they wanted so. what could be the next step. we showed people for perhaps get rid of mubarak he was the hatred then everything will get better but of course no government is just one person. and so the regime system running the country has run an economy has fundamentally changed since. many of the leaders of the protests do seem who are older retired before the break and this opens a very unstable because we don't really know who is organizing them straight into the muslim brotherhood is it possible this is our group so just briefly does this

mean that people so-called people that revolutions aren't necessarily successful and the outcomes are highly unpredictable. you know exactly it's one thing to demolish the old rule of when i go in to build something new ones on the village plates but we know that there's a rest again in syria today i see the reporting on the wires what's the situation there do you think. you see on the one hand there is on restless discontent on the other hand you have very deeply divided society president assad has the support of the religious minorities who have also a lot of the you have a number of also a number of operations in the army so you have a fear there on the part of the people run regime if there is a change of power they will not only lose power they could lose their lives and ration very explosive situation same time demonstrations are not sort of our sort of course their friends family support and wish to single. action and so you have polarization radicalization i didn't hear him into. the situation always good to

talk to on our team lot of and professor mark on the joining us there middle east expert joining us there lots of thank you very much indeed for time folks. let's bring us up to date for the moment so next it's the business news with dimitri stay with us for that. thanks bill not a trace of course in london the ruling on the legitimacy of the sixteen billion dollars shares were between b.p. and ross has upheld the injunction blocking the deal the tribunals decision appears to mark another victory for access will never be peace partners in the russian oil . he has strongly objected to b.p.'s proposed tie up with ross saying it broke the shareholder agreement. that swap an article expiration deal back in january. so we're going to markets now pretty well prices have extended their rally we're going and rest in the middle east and africa and we think all is also contributing

to the result and what we see now is not. hundred eleven sixty three brant over one hundred twenty five dollars a barrel reports say and oil field in libya has been damaged fuelling concerns the civil war may destroy the country's oil facilities and precious metals are also on the rise with silver breaking the psychological mark fourteen dollars per ounce that's another thirty year high. u.s. stocks are modestly rebounding in some respects from what we saw last hour with the still in negative territory this is of course pressure from the world prices on economically sensitive stocks. european markets ended friday's session on a positive note the footsies up point eight percent of blacks point five percent they were led by mining stocks on higher gold silver and copper prices like b.h.p. billiton were pretty strong also aerospace and defense sector stocks like the

systems were gaining here in moscow the markets closed session on a strong note the market followed the rally on commodities bringing overall weekly games to two point two five percent for the r.t.s. and point seven percent for the my second. a closer look now on friday's session gazprom is one of the best performing have a white sox up more than ten percent that's after announcing it has yet such as the stake in the maybe an elephant field from at a county matter was also strong it's up to an office that will strike a precious metals shares of bank of moscow record by seven point six percent as you can see that after the head of its main shareholder beats me back the club that has a stake in the bank big enough to gain operational control and i can physicians of business r.t. we will be back next hour with a not that. you're

. in the position not enough. when it's something really crucial. when you want to get down to brass tacks we bring you our special coverage you're. in a place already synonymous with tragedy the world witnessed another disaster that left the country devastated. and united two nations in greece.