all. they faced it this is not a provocation but warned. that we should see several you sure do support retreat because they have no idea about the hardships that we face. like one it is this is it you know all of them to the east and. the army to life never use the other is the most precious thing in the world. is of self-sacrifice and heroism with those who understand it fully but you have to live a. real life stories from world. nine

hundred forty five don't r.t. dot com. the russian president pledges drastic measures in a bid to create a better investment climate in the country. the centralizing power and stifling corruption goals voiced by its me team a day to fear at the international economic forum in st petersburg join me at least an hour for more details in just a moment. no consent no cash u.s. congressman say they'll cut funding for the libya campaign unless the president gets the proper constitutional go ahead for the ongoing war obama's ninety days of action without sanction runs out this weekend. and palestinians are out of pocket off to israel holds back millions in tax leaving tens of thousands of people without their wages.

international news and comment live from our studios here in central moscow this is . russia must modernize its economy in the next few years regardless of who is in charge present if it has been outlining the country's direction at the same petersburg form of top business leaders he also warns that the government's large role in the economy along with corruption threaten development and must be tackled and he said no reports now from some petersburg. well there are certainly a lot of obstacles and president medvedev knows that became very clear and has for real with his whole term as president that he thinks modernization is the way to go into the future with russia he clearly outlined all of the obstacles that the country is facing first let's take a listen to what he had to say about modernization of the whole process and it's

called. if the studios choice is not only a major green you will of outdated elements in the economy but all public institution these we need to hesitate to say sorry about many bad habits we can focus only on the step by step development machine that would be a mistake that would be which we should focus on the following improvement over the investment climate in russia to create new jobs in the regions creation of police and other security forces improvement of the effectiveness of the jurisdiction system and finally the modernization of government employee lowden approaches and the centralizing power. of course one of those bad habits so to say as the president phrased it that he was talking about was corruption it's no secret that corruption is widespread unless of course in many other emerging economies it's widespread as well and the president clearly wants to fight it this is the warning he have for us and of his cells that are corrupt he's got a noose around the neck of those who practice corruption should be toilets and and

the whole of russia agrees with this without exception which could go to corruption is very difficult to do with the government should be purged of corruption in a more decisive way young for that purpose we should enhance the way those suspected of corruption or dismissed from public service. joining me now here is a few years first to speak more about modernization and the challenges that russia is facing especially in terms of the economy danielle trey's read this from u.c.l.a. thanks for being with us i'd like to begin with the president's speech of course once again we heard the trend of monitors ation corruption decentralizing the government. what are the details problems if you could tell us briefly that are hampering this process why was touched on some very familiar to some of it a lot of help from the rupture of the need for police reform if that's your story and so on. that's fine but that's part of the trouble but the problem really has

been implementation in many speeches and many programs that melds it's less clear ground level that's really changed the way that's the toughest throughout the supply how do you think those spot steps begin to be taken where does it need to start at the lowest level it's the sort of whole of civil tenuously that i think everybody is supposed to like to take a fighting corruption so everything's the effect of the state and that is to introduce more political competition although. at the same time it's increasing freedom costs. or sometimes we exaggerate the west that the restraints on the press markets of the saturated fat still to have was genuinely in the friendly publication so tell the shallots with help tremendously the question is whether

it's reach if this point is there let's take more risks introduced elements of political competition let's media freedom of course that all adds to the push for modernization as well tenuous and thank you very much for being with us here after the economic forum will continue our coverage over the rest of today and tomorrow as the world's modern innovators top business executives and world leaders gather to face the challenges facing the modern world and of course the economy. and he said now if they're not his business team is also keeping track of what's coming out of the international economic forum on a consistent basis transit is their forests. president said. better announces that the government is planning to privatized more bizarre sets and move toward a more open economy more live from st petersburg coming up. china may be the world's emerging past but its leader still sees the global recovery is slow and fragile and more reform is needed he tells been speaking out

that economic forum in some petersburg a day after failing to agree on a major energy deal with russia talked about g q is an expert in russia china relations and he's told us that he's optimistic about the deal it'll just take a bit of time. negotiation will be tough there will be a lot of terms that need to be determined negotiated it takes time but i'm basically optimistic about finding and below ultimately because the fundamental factors are there to economists are highly complimentary to each other so. if a deal is signed it will be a win win situation russia need to be more diversified in terms of the market. wants to also wants and i'm worth the fight it's the supply of and indeed sources for instance the us to depend heavily on the middle east so we all know that ricin disturbance there so tiny is hunger for a new energy source and suddenly this if this the rich and china can buy

a large. amount of gas from russia they have to again to stable and long term reliable and the resources. talked about g q an expert in russia china relations at the city university in hong kong speaking to a little earlier. u.s. congress members of threatening to cut funding for america's military campaign in libya which is racking up a bit of ten million dollars a day but the white house is refusing to ask for congressional approval of military action which is required by law the president is allowed ninety days before asking permission and that runs out this weekend but he's got to explains. u.s. lawmakers are saying that president obama has to either stop waging war in libya or ask for congressional approval the lawmakers claim that the military action will violate the nine hundred seventy three war powers resolution if it does not and by friday and they mean this friday ninety days after the intervention began under the

u.s. constitution to wage a long term war the president needs to get authorization from congress and only say the obama administration will certainly find a way to get around the requirements by referring to his rights as commander in chief as well as certain legal speak you know up to this day the administration has refused to say war when it comes to their actions in levy they call it kinetic military action but as a result of that kinetic military action civilians are bombed every day a group of international observers is now in tripoli including a former u.s. congresswoman cynthia mckinney we spoke with her a few days ago she said they heard and they counted eighty nine blasts in just one day those are civilian neighborhoods eighty nine bombs dropped in just one day there is a lot of concern that the voices of those who are caught up in that war in tripoli go unnoticed in the international community but here in the us it seems the voices of the majority of americans those who oppose the u.s.

military involvement in libya also go unnoticed by the white house the administration continues to stress the good cause that they pursuing leiby of but some analysts say the administration also seems to be in denial when it comes to the will of their own people regarding the issue as well as constitutional procedures legal experts say there is not much congressman can do to force the president to comply at least with the u.s. constitution because there are ways to get around ways the obama administration seems to be using extensively most congressmen now criticize president obama for as they say ignoring congress but top of the hill observers say it's mostly political games that the lawmakers are playing to score points by snubbing. the president come the day to actually vote the majority of them will vote for more military spending as they always do but there is a small bipartisan group of congressmen ten people in it who went further than. they sued president obama on the grounds that he's violating the constitution but everybody here knows that the lawsuit is certain to be dismissed on procedural

grounds because the u.s. supreme court has determined that members of congress do not have standing to file such suit and this is where it hits a dead end that it makes many wonder whether or not u.s. lawmakers actually have the capacity to effectively represent the people. reporting their. congress members really do they want the u.s. to put out of libya washington watcher and voice of russia radio host common russell so the chance he told on t.v. the hawks on capitol hill will only benefit if the military operation drags on the problem is that when there was a prior lawsuit during clinton's four into the former yugoslavia dentist to sit in the group of other congressmen and even at that time filed a very similar lawsuit saying that it was illegal and it went to a district court but the district courts the individual congressmen did not have any sort of standing the reality is i think still a majority of congressmen are are going to support the the actions in libya and

afghanistan and so on congress is not going to. come and say that we shouldn't be doing this and try to defund it and besides obama is currently using discretionary department of funds discretionary funds to get around it anyway so you know it's a question of how effective it would be if it works you know to their benefit we do live in a military industrial complex type of world where they have they have the purse strings they have the power. the first round of protests have flared up in syria against president assad's regime with sixteen people reportedly killed in clashes on friday meanwhile they're planning a third round of sanctions because of the government's crackdown on protesters that let's cross live to brussels and get an update from our correspondent lindsey france lindsay what are the latest restrictions likely to focus on. well bill reports are stating that the new restrictions are likely to focus on banks in fact twelve individuals firms and other entities are said to be focused on

now already in place arms embargoes travel bans and asset freezes so this would then add to that now the e.u. diplomats report that. they hope to get this passed before the june twelfth e.u. council meeting coming up here next week now at the same time france and germany have come out and said that they both want to push very heavily to put pressure on countries like china and russia to support a new u.n. security council resolution concerning syria german chancellor angela merkel stating today that in light of the new wave of violence to hit the country that france and germany are both in their own way is going to personally put pressure on russia and china to support a new u.n.

resolution talking of russia which is russia actually. dealing with syria. well recently foreign minister sergei lavrov has spoken with journalists reiterating the russian federation stance that any. restructuring of the government in syria needs to be wholly undertaken by the syrian people and since saying sincerely that russia will continue to disagree with submitting the syrian issue to the un security council now he says this especially in light of the escalation of the libyan issue where he says the nato actions in libya are exceeding the framework designed by the security council so in light of that and many times it's been said by president rid of and other russian officials that the problems in syria need to be left to syria and russia will not be partnering with

any foreign governments to intervene there because you thanks very much indeed lindsey for reporting there in brussels thanks for that update and the middle east expert and blogger shero joins me know he's joining us live from london thanks very much indeed for being with us here in our team no no no other the north the u.s. talking about a military intervention to stop the bloodshed in syria just how effective these sanctions. pardon i didn't hear the last section sorry i'm just going to ask you just how effective are sanctions at the moment bearing in mind that no military intervention is being considered at the moment. i don't think sanctions are intended to be effective but they are part of this new way of intervention that's emerging by the west which is more about signals and hijacking the. authority of the high moral ground and the worry then is that with their skill it

over time. then prepare the ground for a more direct action that direction direct action be justified obviously what we've seen there in libya a humanitarian mission clearly the syrians are in the same sort of trouble as the libyans the libyan people being attacked by their own regime so that does justify intervention doesn't it. not absolutely not. opposed to any sort of outside intervention and i think in order to understand this point so it's not seen as an indorsement of any regime that's coming under what we are seeing here in our movements for self-determination and it's something we haven't seen in countries for a very long time and for these movements to be hijacked by external authorities under whatever humanitarian excuses are being used that would be a very damaging thing it would lead to political splits as we have seen in libya

and you would lead to corrosion in the legitimacy of the uprising themselves and ultimately misconceived notion as we can see clearly from libya there is no plan of action and there's no clarity about what the ends are so i think it's neither legitimate nor desirable from my point of view so you believe that the syrians fate should be left to own hands in their own hands but what would happen if the regime did collapse there. in syria what would be the consequences for the country and the region. i think we have to actually learn a little bit from what's been happening over the past three months what we're looking at is. a sort of stalemate at this moment because the uprising has proved that he has. but he has managed to galvanize support huge rallies if you like in either in damascus or aleppo but it certainly has the legitimacy and has the stamina on the other hand it's very clear that there is even as lost its authority

and it's not being able to put down rising so i don't think it's will be similar in any way to order to egyptian scenarios but what will happen that over time the opposition i think it will have to galvanize itself if it would have any chances for success and come up with a clear plan for a political handover for power and for a kind of a better political future for syria and if it's managed this way i think we can only be a very promising thing for syria and for the region because syria plays a very important role. but isn't syria made up with a very complicated fabric of communities and people is there really a coherent opposition. but that's precisely what i mean at the moment because i think it's a put on my eyes by the fact the represented by the fact that the opposition hasn't managed to organize itself into a clear. organized force on the ground that can mount

a more serious or stage if you like demonstration on the scale that we saw in cairo saw they would have to find a way if you like or a clear political platform to move them beyond just wanting to get rid of the current regime and if that fails then we're looking at period of confusion and bigotry political ambiguity but i would kind of argue against this fact. any society that's made up of from cultural or ethnic or whatever is inherently unsuited for democracy which is sometimes the insinuation not all politics i think and political aspirations can unify the syrian society and syria is clearly a politically very very important region is that perhaps why the west isn't taking the same approach with yemen and bahrain showing a little interest in those countries in comparison to the interest is showing in syria. absolutely i mean it has to do a lot with where the strategic interests of the west are but also very

specifically to if you like the particular worldview that the u.s. has developed in foreign policy matters since nine eleven specifically which is based. fear of islamism and the threat of al qaeda and you has tended to value stability over anything else so all the talk of exporting democracy and all that sort of preaching the rest of the world i find is highly inconsistent and it's hypocritical and in the case of syria in particular i think the u.s. is caught between wanting to be active but at same time mortified by what the alternative would be in syria which in my view is completely unjustified it's not necessarily going to turn into a fundamentalist islamic state or anything like that what we are seeing there are really a spirit of freedom and democracy and. while he could have been if you

like played a more consistent role in foreign policy hasn't done that but also any sort of intervention there will do now which is based purely on this desire for stability is bound to be counterproductive really interesting talking to you thank you for your time live from london middle. culture i thank you. well time to bring you up to date on some of the other top stories from around the world at this stage of the day to greece the country supports the new finance minister in a major government reshuffle to try and stave off a catastrophic collapse of its economy it is a trying to force through deeply unpopular cuts which sparked violent protests on the streets this week greece needs to secure billions of euros in a second e.u. . meanwhile german in france a quick deal is vital to stop greece is a problem spilling into other countries. north korea is accusing

seoul of forcing one of its citizens to stay in the self warning that it could worsen relations between the two countries but seoul says it won't extradite the group which defected by boat last week saying they've asked to resettle in itself in february the north responded angrily when its neighbor refused to send back for fisherman who had asked for asylum. israel has been holding back millions of dollars of palestinians money leaving thousands of people without any wages it's tax revenue that's supposed to be passed back to the palestinian people but since the political groups hamas and fattah reconciled the payments have stopped paulison has been meeting some of those who are suffering at the sharp end. guards of the palestinian ministry of finance his job is to check everything that comes into this building but he has no control over what goes out least of all his salary which is paid by the ministry and sometimes comes long overdue my salary comes later it's like my life starts i simply cannot do anything i have a wife and four children to feed and when i don't get paid on time it makes lots of

problems for me and my family. i want to cleave the ministry gets its money from the israeli government it comes in the form of customs and tax treaty said television been collecting on goods arriving at israeli ports and destined for palestinians the arrangements and one thousand nine hundred three is part of the oslo accord giving television control of the international borders between israel and the palestinian territories with the money transferred each month to the palestinian ministry of finance which uses it to pay wages except now we're talking about seven hundred million dollars for. every kind of. ask anyone in the military they were freed the situation itself palestinians fear their tell of of could again choose to withhold tax money like it did last month israelis argue they have every right to do so if they suspect the money could be used for buying weapons. to the hamas terrorists paid for the same bank account sold. to finance these terrorist.

palestinians insist the monies for ordinary workers it is. sore because of one. but on the other it's a punishment it's a collective punishment that would mainly weaken the moderate elements within the palestinian society and play into the hands of the extremists the relationship between hamas and fattah is a turbulent one but both groups are trying hard to work together ahead of september's planned declaration of statehood no doubt israel will be working even harder to thwart them should it feel its interests are threatened policy r.t. . or kareena will be bring is not date on the second day of the economic forum in petersburg and our business update that in just a few moments stay with us live here in moscow.

welcome to business here now t. our top story today russia's most important financial event of the year at the st petersburg international economic forum. the city of st peter's back has always been called russia's window to europe but with the economic forum in full swing it has become the window to the whole world archies matter as a wraps up the second day of the. the highlight of today indisputably president medvedev keynote address to the assembly here talking about modernization and innovation as the main the main focuses of the event and the main focus for the

russian economy in the years to come he pointed out on decks and mailed out rule as a shining examples of home grown business is that i've done well on the foreign market examples that others can follow also talked about the ten billion dollars state fact private equity fund something that he believes will bring more innovation and spur growth here in russia also expanding the thirty billion dollar assets sale program of state assets into private hands something that he thinks is also going to be a good deal for the russian economy. the loans amounts what you could see but it has only to fool privatization of major companies is that the implementation of these plans is necessary at the very modest to go to the first of the scale of trying to time as they should in order to his old lease i'm sure will be able to go through with it in a movie transparent way to attract. the best is the generate sufficient funds for

the russian budget but you medvedev also said that state capitalism is not something that's going to work for russia but that the role of the government should instead be doing what it can to help foster innovation and foster for investment in the country and come up with a good atmosphere a good environment for businesses to thrive in russia that's what he said is going to move the economy forward along those lines he believes that the country needs less regulation less red tape to get business is often off the ground in russia and also he believes there needs to be more efficient development in the country now along those lines we have had lots of business go on here at the economic forum of the size just the keynote speeches from president medvedev and chinese leaders. there are also the some of. dates on the russians energy deals with foreign companies gazprom nafta and american shell have agreed to jointly develop new oil resources and some of the hard to get areas of russia to russia and

a broad this is a deal that could help gazprom least its presence in europe countries also planning to jointly develop in the arctic the deal or check that there's been a bunch of news about a major deal that could become the agreement of the decade the failed arctic tie up between a ross nafta and b.p. the other countries were planning to jointly develop the arctic but the deal collapsed as b.p. and other in his rather russian partner they are opposed to the agreement despite this b.p. says that it is off to a mistake about prospects we were not successful in reaching a commercial conditions that were acceptable to all of the companies and i think the concept of a strategic partnership through screws good for russia good for. the energy markets. good for all of the companies involved. it says it is

still looking for a partner to help develop the arctic and as soon as this is as soon as year possibly and energy should minister sergei shmuck because radko highlights the nonetheless it triggered investor investor interest in the russian shelf and b.p.'s chief is also positive about this so in all lot of important economic news going on here in russia and being highlighted day two of the st petersburg international economic forum. now let's look at the markets u.s. stocks gave back a large portion of the morning's gains the nasdaq is lower as some of the enthusiasm for a german french resolution to greece's debt crisis wanes tech to tech materials and as you sectors are trading in the in the red now the rest markets closed in the went on friday sinking the most in two weeks as oil drops and now four months low the obvious and at point seven percent lower and i'm isaac's that is over eighty percent of that oil producer gas bomb you have to point three percent has been back was down one cent.