international divisions over syria as nations try to end the bloody crackdown on antigovernment protesters russia insists intervention will only lead to more violence. washington support for opposition movements in the middle east and north africa could be backfiring on its biggest ally israel fears it's actually boosting radical islamists plus. compulsory club. rush to crack down on trucks with new measures aimed at course to the extent we have all the details on this it just came up it's.

international news live from our studios here in central moscow this is r.t. where it's just past eight pm in the russian capital russia has blocked un plans to condemn syria's brutal crackdown on anti regime protesters saying there are no grounds for international interference the u.s. and european nations have called for stronger measures if damascus rejects appeals to end the violence syria's leader faces international criticism for using troops and tanks to put down the unrest that's already claimed hundreds of lives however moscow police foreign interference could do more harm than good making protesters and other countries reliant on foreign support but u.s. efforts to push the region towards democracy may actually be fueling a rise in extremist movements affecting the region's only non arab state israel. has more now from tel aviv. these gunmen mean business and they're

upping the stakes just that little bit higher at least use the egyptian regime like resigning as the enemy trying to stop us foreigners and girls are but we always got the weapons we needed to fight the zionist enemy. and now they give more than they could give a hopeful what for me gyptian president hosni mubarak swingarm the borders couldn't be easier to get through the big wins in. who world's oil smuggled. who. have much more freedom to do whatever they like. and they're doing it smuggling weapons into gaza the result two attacks in three months on a natural gas pipeline that supplies a quarter of israel's electricity which is why is the us claims it's bringing a new tomorrow to egypt most israelis would rather remember gift a year the eagerness of the united states to topple the four major from president hosni mubarak and bring about regime change that ironically most harmed closest

ally in the region israel the u.s. says it wants to establish democracy in the region but instead of the market is a very real possibility that radical islamic could come to power the u.s. strongly supported the opposition in libya despite al qaeda connections among its friends now it's apparently governessing support against syrian president bashar assad and the wiki leaks website claiming that washington has been funding some anti-government factions what is afraid that if he goes away what's the world can fix it so instead of incident in syria we're going to islamist you swapping one dictator for what could be worse if and when radicals come to power they're likely to direct the arms at israel and it will be very conscious of the part that syria is not libya and the fact that if you do the sides intervene in syria you would have knock on effects across the region in iraq in lebanon to

israel palestine. what it when you throw it is well my face from an even more hostile arab world emerging from the president's ability some experts believe the security of the jewish state is not under any grave threat israel has never been an unsafe place and one of the greats is alive is the mother and father of all lies as it relates to the israeli palestinian conflict is that israel has been in danger of annihilation i detail in the three volumes of my book it is a complete israel's existence is never ever be in danger any combination of arab military force and that is unlikely to change in any foreseeable future but the fighters on the ground aren't giving up hope and there are men this warning is that is worse to come. and the moment time of defeat and retreat is over now it's time for the israeli people and the israeli enemy to pay. is always keeping quiet amid the coming to chaos in the middle east and north

africa but behind closed doors they'll be plenty of disquiet here about how much america's desire to make new friends in the arab world is fueling serious instability points here r t television. well r.t. caught up with veteran middle east reporter alan hots for his insight on events in the arab world and we'll bring you his full interview in just over twenty minutes from now but here's a brief preview for you meantime. well i'm sorry we can't actually bring that for you but as i say we'll have that interview for you in full in about twenty minutes from now in the meantime william engle he's the author of a century of war anglo-american oil politics and the new world order joins me now to talk about the situation in the middle east william thanks very much indeed for joining us here on r.t. well as we just heard in that report the uprising in egypt is open borders for palestinian fighters to smuggle arms now this in turn has boosted their attacks on

israel can you give us an idea what you think about what the effect might be with the syrian unrest taking place at the moment on its jewish neighbor. but i think the syrian and the events in egypt since the end of last year all of this is a very good stabilizing factor for tell of the good for israel and i think there is increasing question among leading figures in israel whether the special relationship with washington is something that is been. dramatically reduced in priority that. is an x. factor of instability throughout the entire region and in my view that's why would it be at the stabilizing factor for perhaps a potential regime change in syria for israel bearing in mind of course syria's attitude towards israel surely a regime change some might say would be a good thing for israel. well if we have a conversion into a muslim brotherhood. regime in syria that that is going to present an

extremely difficult factor for the country syria has never pursued. beyond a rhetorical aggression toward israel a provocative stance as some people who believe they certainly are not of. a mind the. government in syria damascus to launch any any kind of military provocations and israel so. to have a muslim brotherhood as a new regime combined with a similar thing in egypt padds an element which i think some people in washington are mad enough to want to play with an element of destabilization that will sweep from morocco all the way to afghanistan and pakistan and throughout the islamic world in order to create is complete evil in the region number one to control the oil resources that flow both to try and also western europe germany

italy and other countries and number two to. take one of the wealthiest regions in the world the center of much of the known world wealth and bring that ultimately under the hands of privatized western companies mainly british and american oil multinational companies and goals and stick training made it clear that no one in a speech in london in one thousand nine if we are seeing caps this. by the u.s. many would say well at the moment doesn't see working a lot of international support and when you bear in mind what's going on in libya and now we see what's happening in syria many people are saying syria is not libya and now we're seeing the u.n. at the moment the security council undecided in some ways in fact has actually decided to stay away from the syrian conflict so that's not what the u.s. wants it actually wants help from the international world to push for its policies . well if you look at what the u.s. did to engineer the. un resolution on libya this was one of the most.

brazen transgressions of the rights of nation national sovereignty and international law that we've seen in the post world war two period the responsibility to protect is an insidious doctrine that has been used it's an entirely very notion that spend developed by various and you'll think thanks connected to the circles in the united states to justify a nato definition of an intervention in a sovereign country cut off these libya there's been no attempt to have it have a peaceful conflict resolution before this thing escalated in fact rather the the west the us the france and britain have been called virtually according to the evidence that's leaking out covertly arming the opposition to gadhafi in hopes of grabbing control of the oil and the different parts of libya how can we see that sort of policy being pursued in syria operations helping the opposition wiki leaks

says indeed there is some help from the u.s. with the syrian opposition there's no question about it it's well documented the damascus center is run by a syrian who's who's in exile in the us and there's been money poured in through these so-called humanitarian or human rights and deals this is the vehicle as i document in my writings and my articles this is the vehicle for washington to create regime change in countries that don't play according to bluff and script a new world order whatever you want and that includes iran as well william and this it is it going to right along well right now i think iran is on the back burner it certainly was on a front burner about a year ago when hillary clinton admitted that. the state department was supporting the twitter revolution the so-called green revolution in iran. the interesting thing is you have that you have an attempt by the on the turkish prime minister to

create a three point mediation plan to bring reform to syria and end the fighting there without outside intervention fortunately this time also russia and china are playing a reasonable role in blocking any u.n. security council science and for. strong measures against the syrian so i think they learned from their. deadly mistake on the libyan case when they saying that the state has no wind if it's allowed to pass responsibility to protect one of the most dangerous international legal doctrine some sort of a problem that's not what people have to look at the international community would side with but then if the international community is silent and yet you see pictures coming from syria you hear the cries of help from the libyans who it seems that these are actually people who want a regime change and they want to have a democratic future and they want help from the west it are you saying actually

people should sit back and let it happen and let those regimes kill their own people. well first of all u.s. defense secretary gates admitted that the u.s. intelligence has no information that the qaddafi government with its air force strafed innocent civilians and that was used images of that reports from syria and from libyan opposition figures standing outside the white house in washington claiming that was a case were used without any international inquiry to prove whether or not it was true so this was run by a media barrage the they wanted qaddafi out because he's not playing according to washington could you could you know how argument sorry to interrupt a lot of time could use argument in syria because no journalists have there at the moment getting accurate reports apparently five hundred people have died during the six week uprising but is it fair to say that we're not too sure really war is going on in syria i don't think we can say with certainty what is going on in syria and

the media reports that are coming out this is being run by pentagon propaganda. journalism in the in the same way that the iraq and the afghanistan wars were were conducted so separating fact from fiction is something that we should do first before we go tearing our shirts off in anguish for innocent civilians supposedly murdered we just don't know and just finally just finally just going anywhere is what is going to lead to people hoping this is going to be a wave of democracy of democratic change through the middle east north africa is going to lead to chaos from your point of view. i think it's not going to bring democracy to the middle east to have u.s. british and french deliberate intervention to destabilize the region is not going to bring anything let alone democracy i think this is a massive upheaval an attempt at what some people in washington call creative destruction i think is very uncreative and they simply want to grab the oil and they want to grab the wealth of the sovereign wealth funds that are some of the

biggest capital sources on earth today put them under direct london and new york control thanks very much indeed author of a century of war anglo-american oil politics and the new world order joining us live in frankfurt thank you time thank you. but it's now a just a few hours to go before barack obama is expected to announce big changes to his national security team he said to be preparing to bring in a new defense secretary head of the cia commander in afghanistan and a new ambassador to kabul u.s. army colonel an experiment and right says washington still stuck in a bush era military mentality it's the recycling of everyone who's been involved in really ten years of u.s. wars they've already been estrangement is just continuing the war or strategies of the bush administration and in fact obama has increased the war in afghanistan dramatically now over fifty five percent of the american budget is related to

military expenditure a cent yet we see schools that are laying off tens of thousands of teachers we have a health care system that's going down the tubes and yet we spend fifty five percent of our budget on war we certainly need some new ideas some new initiatives and this in the us war that the united states is involved in and just recycling the same moral people switching jobs with them is not the way that you ensure the national security of the united states in my opinion. drug addicts in russia will soon face a much tougher punishment for their habits under a proposed new law clubs bars and cafes will also be held responsible for drug use . to deal with an epidemic of narcotics abuse across the country. has the details present to determine if it has water to toughen up the punishment given to regular users of non-medical not accorded some psychotropic drugs as of now these

people can only be charged up to two hundred dollars and arrested and held up to fifteen days so her punishment will also be imposed against those who distribute drugs and in particular those who attract the under age also the owners of nightclubs and other insane but uses klein's used drugs in these venues will show responsibility now the focus though has shifted from just punishing drug addicts to preventing people from becoming users need to just them also with shipments for people convicted of minor drug related crimes that they made or alternative punishments yourself what are the governments of those states and not the current that's the word to use compulsory testing the school fees that cross the country each of those first use drugs in russia has told significantly to allow them to twelve years times in these circumstances the president believes that all schoolchildren of the country should have those tests but of course this initiative

has raised that heated debate with them on some as a similar drug testing initiative paid to try it has raised fears that it would encourage corruption amongst the always horseman officials and of course there is a leadership that extent human rights here is or to use to go abroad if reports drugs counselors worry that the focus is in the wrong places. this moscow student is taking a drug there voluntarily but there are russian president dmitry medvedev has his way hundreds of thousands of students and even school children as young as thirteen will be compulsorily yes this week when you see a reasonable a lot of parents are saying that compulsory drug testing is unethical but i think what's behind their allotments is an unwillingness to face the problem with prevents their children from receiving proper treatment our country has not dealt with this problem compulsory drug testing an education establishment has already been part of it in several russian region so far only voluntary schemes but it

under-age have been improved country wide field employed by an influx of drugs to again if there exists a way that there are over three million regular illegal drug users in russia most of them under twenty five this by protests from human rights groups hearing this statement is a show of young children by association with drugs officials insist this thing must start at school. we want to catch people not when they are drug addicts or when they're younger and not just try drugs to ascertain whether there might be a potential risk for developing an addiction. or the initiative has raised questions of not just ethics but defectiveness and this voluntary rehabilitation so . his skepticism about the tests if you don't think it would have changed anything for me when i was in school i wanted to take drugs at the time so we just did towards the end of school i wasn't even hiding my drug use that much. more the us being categorically against these terrorists i remember my own reaction to the test

will eliminate and provoke making him those around him even less so also some will cheat and that will give them a sense of invincibility. psychologist to propose actually don't go far enough. in this measure will just give us the statistics of who takes drugs not the solution how they're going to kick out all those who fail we will those students go what are they going to do to treat them. at that moment there are only one hundred sixty state sponsored drug rehabilitation clinics and the whole of russia worth one for every million of the population hundreds of new ones would have to be built and thousands more addiction specialists trained simply to cope with it upsurge of patients i don't fight but a compulsory drug for these initiatives have called the headlines but now the government has to prove that beyond them it has a cogent program to stop people from trying drugs at an earlier age and this is

something that governments both here and abroad have tried and failed to do before . god see moscow. russian security forces have killed six militants in three separate operations in the country's republic of dagestan one was killed in a remote region of the country on thursday and two others in the republican capital . one of the militants was the leader of a local terrorist cell and another counterterrorist we began elsewhere in pakistan on wednesday resulted in the death of three militants no officers or civilians were wounded in the operations security forces have recently stepped up their assault on terrorists in russia's corpuses region dozens of al qaeda linked militants have been killed there over the past few weeks. time now to update you on some of the other international news making headlines at this stage of the day there's been a massive explosion in morocco with at least fourteen people reported dead around twenty others are injured including two russian nationals officials say evidence

now suggests it was a bomb attack or the blast was at a cafe in medication the main square which is a tourist hot spot. another killed by storm sweeping across the southern states of the u.s. has exceeded two hundred pounds profit damage in several towns in alabama when most of the victims were dozens of roads are impassable hundreds of homes are destroyed and power lines are down a state of emergency has been declared in alabama arkansas and tennessee the number of dead could rise with more victims thought to be trapped under rubble. to start now at least five people killed and over a dozen injured in the pakistani city of karachi when a roadside bomb hit a bus carrying navy personnel is the third such attack in the last few days but two navy policies targeted on tuesday was an immediate unclear who was behind this latest attack but the taliban claimed the two. security experts say the navy assumes a soft target with less effective protection and this could be part of

a new minutes in strategy. katrina's with us with a business you surely go first let me tell you about r t v dot com and there you can head to our web site for more stories were online to twenty four hours a day that is a taste of what you find there at the moment i can control the universe that's what reclusive russian mathematician who rejected a one million dollars award believes media shy genius your deeper problem will finally gave an interview to the media and get the details on that dot com. and some wonderful news for all fans of soviet movies russia's largest cinema studio lot spilled as launches own you tube channel and now much all its rooms with english subtitles. plus the website at the moment the center of moscow is full of tanks and other military machines and many to worry as it's for the victory day parade and check out the spectacular footage of the preparations for the main event of red square not long to go now may the ninth just log on to our team.

play. well still ahead this hour we got a result from football's el classico between raylan bosler that's in our sports update in about twenty minutes from now but as promised let's have a look at what's happening in the world of business. thank you bill hello in a wool welcome to you all to the business bulletin for this hour russia is suspending export of petrochemicals in order to tackle the fuel shortage on the domestic market several regions have suffered from the lack of petrol in recent days and examined as are all from gazprom by explains what's happening in the markets the problem is that government has applied

a new tax regime for export. oil products probably now for some oil companies it is more profitable to export this petrol diesel outside russia russia rather than sell it to domestic retail stations also. or at least year expertise to crude oil was provided to very attractive bad backs for their crude exports so basically oil companies also preferred to export crude rather than refining their russian soldier gether with minor regional e.g. states problems it turns into some regional deficits or. in some russian regions the russian government is to ease the tax burden for petrochemical produces in order to ensure a base of domestic fuel supply this after claims that the current prices don't come up reduces costs they had a russian oil native lukoil have warned that fuel prices could rise by up to seven

percent. but we are preparing for a possible fuel supply disruptions this summer of course. now we are already saving fuel to supply our customers at a peak time during a holding period but the current price on the russian market does not reflect the company's standing on petrol and diesel production and their delivery to customers all the tariffs for natural monopolies are indexed that's why we believe that prices may grow but not significantly we have a number of factors at play and we are discussing the issue with the government five seven percent could be a deterrent of course if the government would have to be excise tax which it had introduced on the first of january. has extended its run on the back of a declining dollar way by the fed's decision to continue to help shore up the u.s. economy gold is gathering pace and is at one thousand five hundred thirty six sorry about thousand five hundred twenty eight dollars this hour with soda up one percent

at forty eight dollars and thirty two cents meanwhile hong kong is launching a new trading in gold futures hoping to catch a rising investor interest in the mess so. now let's have a look at the markets the dow has brushed off openings reclines and is now trading up just a notch at point one two percent the nasdaq however is down two point three one percent that's on news that u.s. economic growth has slowed in the first quarter to analyze writing one point eight percent compared with three point two percent in the previous calls that analysts claim the growth has been hampered by high energy prices which continue to weaken consumer spending. in europe the markets are trading in the black this hour with the footsie up point nine one percent and the dax up point nine five so quite similar there. among the market movers are dortch a bank which is up over four percent on the back of strong quarterly results. and here in moscow the markets finished their sessions in positive territory the r.t.s. going almost point six percent and the mindsets almost point three of the same. now

let's take a look at some index moves on the my six most energy majors were trading in the black and it's russia's largest oil producer rosneft finishing up one point eight nine percent and point seven of a percent the t.v. thank you very have dropped almost almost two percent. despite recent oil getting its own higher prices john when so davies at women asset management at least russia's stock markets still have a way to go if we strip out the u.s. dollar element of the r.c.s. they're just as up for half percent here today i can say that because the my six in real terms is is up approximately that and my my no notes are somewhere but i think the my six month to date is actually down about four percent so it's not like we're in any kind of a runaway market you can actually make the case that with persistently high demand for russian exports you commodities well gas copper timber. iron ore all time high

prices and that coal thermal coal you can actually say that surprising that russia hasn't done better but it has done better because again we're going back to just macro picture which i think is much more important. well that's the latest for now but we'll have more for you shortly on prime time so you.

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