the u.s. congress has voted against president obama's policy of a military intervention in libya but stops short who've pulling funds for the operation. making waves in russian politics one of the country's richest men. is to become a high profile new leader of a political party with major ambitions for this year's elections. and heading for the exit the growing number of israelis who are leaving the country accusing authorities of failing to bring peace to the promised land.

just after two pm on saturday here in moscow are you with r.t. i am a receipt showing the u.s. congress has refused to grant president obama authority to continue the military campaign in libya but the very same lawmakers have turned down a motion to cut funding for the american action in the country the vote being seen as largely symbolic as the white house says it doesn't need congressional approval for the mission. has more from washington. the resolution adopted by the house of representatives is seen more like a message of rebuke to president obama rather than an actual war stopper because when he came to voting on cutting funds for that war the majority voted no so some handily see elements of it showing the behavior of the us congress saying that many lawmakers don't miss a chance to snub the president yet knowing that this numbers won't change much at the end of the day as capitol hill observers say when it comes to waging wars

congress has generally been afforded the resolution was sort of a way for the congress to show their frustration over the white house refusal to come to the lawmakers to seek authorization for the military actions under the u.s. constitution only congress can declare war except the obama administration doesn't call it a war otoh it lasts more than three months and involves many civilian deaths earlier this month the congressmen had a chance to send an even stronger message the house debated a resolution from congressman dennis kucinich that calls for an immediate end to the u.s. involvement in. the majority of lawmakers again so we know that proposal nevertheless the lawmakers don't like being ignored but even those who truly wants to stand up against military action in libya there is little they can do as one congressman said you can do resolutions until you are blue in the face but still be ignored by the white house but it seems it's not just resolutions that can be more it's also

the voices of the american people the majority of whom are against u.s. involvement in libya there's also an interesting point that some experts have made with regards to the public perception of the war in libya it's off the headlines american news channels have been focused on congress on for weeks now and there is fear that certain inertia develops in a public perception with regards to the war in libya inertia which some say could be very dangerous. he's a guy named. now the head of the u.s. the center for constitutional rights michael ratner says that president obama is staking his political career on the war in libya. the perspective i have and why didn't the president come to congress and the issue is obviously once a war starts we're in the middle of supporting nato when it's our operation it's much harder to cover what's running and i think you're seeing are really strong opposition building to the war what's interesting is that i think obama looks like

he made a real mistake to go into an illegal war that's contrary to the u.s. constitution and contrary to the war powers resolution which is a statute that was passed by congress a number of years ago and this principally a legal issue oh although it really reflects the underlying discomfort right now with this war and i think there's tremendous discomfort despite their costs are nothing compared to your risk i'm aware. we're not losing soldiers you know i'm getting sick and tired of war. you with r.t. now the former finance minister and hosni mubarak's ouster gyptian government has reportedly found a safe haven in the u.k. but despite the fact that he's been sentenced in absentia thirty years in jail by a court for corruption profiteering and abusing state assets it's all or about looks at why the u.k. is sheltering senior figures from the regime at the same time i said publicly backs the arab spring. when egypt erupted into violence at the store said the year the

u.k. with among the first to support the uprising out with the old dictatorship and in with a new era of democracy the old guard was swept aside but many running in fear for their lives ran straight to a new life in london and the local egyptian community is horrified angry disappointed some of them calling she want to go and. because it is a long time now that the british government be allowing people running oil not just from egypt from all over the world you said carly is just one the former finance minister instead of beginning a thirty year prison sentence for embezzle ment's in egypt he said to be running around london of cream man who trusts god he was convicted in absentia of corruption profiteering and abusing state and private assets he's also been ordered to repay more than ten million dollars and p.

andris slaughter has demanded to push his government does something about it but it's disappointed by the response but we expect to see some more action both against the money and all the goods that's been exported from egypt and other. arab countries but also against fugitives from justice in this country and that's what i feel pressing to cover here today secondly we do have a very strong tradition in this country of about international law. and i want to see that continue and the that the current government to neglect that treaty many think they're already negligent in boutros ghali is case an international arrest warrant has reportedly been issued by egypt but critics feel money and connections secure a ticket to freedom in the u.k. it is great he would not have a problem to get into the united kingdom for so many reasons and the simplest one of them is the money his cause i mean you can. remain with your money the newquay if your money. is. meanwhile in egypt people aren't surprised england they

say is where corrupt middle eastern officials go to hide he's not a stranger to the west very much one of the west's men in egypt was one of the worst men in egypt so that he's found refuge in london is not surprising to anybody the egyptians i after pray the u.k. is a million strong tendency here in london to community leaders say to people with whom i agree there's no guarantee of each other darley will save face here and it will be remain a lousy excuse to pull chrissy letting support for the middle east in a democracy me well let me. bring in the great great see you were at mccarthy. and others are plenty more still to come in the program what i see is a quick taste of what's ahead for you america's strategy in afghanistan. by iraq obama's withdrawal plans are dividing opinion both within and beyond the country's

borders. possibly look at what it takes to work and survive in and one of the most dangerous environments on the planet. after conquering the world of business one of russia's richest man in the hot off has set aside politics he's become the leader of the right course political party known to be in tune with the country's business and leave the billionaire says his goal is to take second place in december's parliamentary elections after the ruling united russia party. of fortune is estimated at about eighteen billion dollars he's a thirty second on the forbes list and the new jersey nets basketball team in an interview with a businessman explains what's taking him into politics. or i'm not the kind of person who will change the dream or plunges into allusions we have particular goals to get into russia's lower house of parliament with the maximum

number of votes but i also understand is that i could be a good prime minister if the party successful i would fight for this position. all right r.t. is coming to you live from moscow it is a state created for millions of jewish people from all over the world to call their home but now growing numbers of israelis are lining up to leave fears over security mean many are opting for the e.u. or american citizenship to meet their expectations of a promised land artie's policy has their story. rachel shites has no reason to like germany she was born a before the second world war and within six years had been expelled and most of her family killed but the irony is she now wants a german passport i think to get money out of the join citizenship to help my children and grandchildren which might be shocking if it wasn't so common in israel today in the last decade some fifty thousand israelis have applied for us

citizenship a quarter of a million already have a second passport it's unlikely that any other country in the world has such a large percentage of new immigrants preparing to leave it's really. the story because he was established to become a show. in. europe because the show. this is my place the very heart of tel aviv here you'll hear more in the thing hebrew and you'll be forgiven for thinking that you're in the us and not the promised land most israelis here have a second passport many of them grew up a broad or have a parent who came from another country canadian an israeli and i would never give them a canadian and probably would give up my very american i wouldn't give up because i have family. i want to go to go there any time british passport or european password is a doorway to opportunities eight years ago the bar was blown up by a suicide bomber three people were killed and fifty injured the bar didn't close

down but some say the rush for new passports heated up in vain because of the bombings there was a feeling of insecurity so yes there was an increase both in immigration and in the demand for passports and that the mind has only grown in the last five years israel has been in two walls and many fear another is not far off and the government's policy of settlement expansion has only isolated the country internationally so it's no surprise this meeting israeli journalist gideon levy that people are tired of living in a war zone. seeing its own creating all the. feel for the. against anything and the payoff is a population it feels unsafe with one eye on europe. gammas time has processed nearly five thousand applications for a second passport in the last ten years that works out at about forty passports a month and he's only one lawyer working in the field the fate of the drop in world

war two the one who are were the one who got the worth for. that if you're going to go work can help you. move. out of danger zone then you do it every year more jews leave israel for europe and the skates then the other way around one in five or so if you choose has already returned home and with no israeli palestinian peace talks on the horizon and growing israeli and security about it i would give instructions on the doorstep this so-called insurance passport is unlikely to lose popularity any time soon pointlessly r r t tel aviv. police to twenty five people have been killed in eastern afghanistan after a suicide car bomb blast of outside a medical clinic dozens more were injured with some in critical condition this comes just after barack obama announced a partial troop withdrawal from afghanistan but not everyone is happy with the

president's plan these military contributors says despite staying in the country for ten years conventional us what type of yielded few terms of the results. if anybody was impressed by a barrage of bomb a speech regarding the tempo and scale of u.s. forces withdraw from afghanistan it was afghan president hamid karzai on the one side the afghan leader was a happy camper regarding their american president announce meant and on the other side there was so much apprehension regarding very action from the u.s. military and from afghan walks popularly as far as the military effort hanchen is concerned it was mostly limited only to armchair commandos stand the u.s. secretary of defense robert gates in fact to the admiral michael mullen opinion

represents the bunker mentality and conventional wisdom conventional group thing the only part of the us military and intelligence community who really have a grasp of the situation less likely to step up to the t.v. cameras and to spill their guts that after ten years all of us uphill battle in afghanistan it turns out that ninety percent of the failure comes to the conventional forces due to conventional thinking. just running quarter past the hour when i hear a moscow you with r.t. let's check out some other international news for you this hour in lebanon leader of hezbollah says the group has captured three spies among its low level members it claimed two of them were recruited by the cia although the agents were not considered a serious threat to the movement the u.s. embassy in the country has dismissed the militant groups are claims as quote empty accusations. new york lawmakers have voted to legalize same sex

marriage the decision to send hundreds of people to celebrate what they described as a victory for civil rights new york six american state where gay couples are officially allowed to marry and have families that comes after president obama encouraged our lawmakers to support the rights of sexual minorities. thousands of anti-government protesters have marched across syria with twenty people killed in separate cities are thirty security forces fired on crowds syrian state t.v. says an identified government were responsible for some of the gusts this comes as the e.u. has introduced fresh sanctions against a mask is for its crackdown on protesters thousands of people have fled to neighboring lebanon and turkey to escape the violence. now in the u.s. bankers are being laid off in shushan numbers almost twelve thousand jobs have already been cut since the beginning of the year it's hardly much sympathy for wall

street high flyers among ordinary americans but as a financial journalist watch told explains they should be concerned as it hints at a new low for the u.s. economy. i think the what happened was there was kind of an idea that was happening that maybe a recovery was on the way because banks were making money again there were huge bonuses being paid out last year and that was an issue there was a lot of backlash and i think that's one of the reasons they actually salaries instead of keeping bonuses the fact now that they're not making money shows that perhaps the economy isn't growing as fast as i thought it was the numbers keep coming out suggesting that charts on growing across various sectors and i think that if there's not money being made on main street that usually kind of affects finance the financial sector as well and if you're not making money trading then these banks can keep the bankers on. that was a business insider cut your watched i was showing her pain you know and america's

stuttering financial plight but what do people in the streets think about these problems the president talk show host laurie harvest finds out in new york. all the latest data indicates the global economy is going limp are you personally affected this week let's talk about that if you felt the effects of the bad economy a better job this economy is not a better job yes i try to go to college and i can because car to my car gas is all expensive at school so expensive so it's money vicious cycle is really bad but i'm happy because brazil is growing like for me is good so is that kind of the way it goes when some countries are hurting other countries can prosper more yeah. spain is looking bad i feel like we're on the right. so they're just exaggerating not in greece and spain no no i feel like airports in the u.s.

are i'm actually in the military so i do not feel at all that's the only per cent i'm one perk my job i've been getting steady paychecks for five years yet i can't see that the american military is going to go out of it if they do any time soon and i guess we have bigger problems to worry about the economy and you had. what we had to go back even more would show we could take cruises you come to new york this . crucial british a first time in new york city today so that doesn't sound like you're hurting that it sounds like you're doing ok we have to cut back on a lot of of think that we've seen the bottom of this crisis or are we headed for bread lines and even worse things that we've seen the bottom line is the bottom look like. well it was pretty bad during the great depression is a bottom that we can compare it to i don't know if we'll get that bad but i don't think we're there yet so do you think we can fix it i'm a global level or do you think it's time countries started looking at themselves

first i think we have to fix it on the global level but i think we reach country have to lower their their expectations of. living standards i think we all had to go down whether or not even personally impacted the bottom line at the global economy apparently continues to it's. twenty minutes past the hour now here in moscow let's go back to one of our top stories now and one of russia's richest men has become the leader of a political party with big ambitions for the parliamentary elections later this year let's get more now from r.t. if you're going to scoff it was standing by live for us and. this is likely to mean do you think strong opposition has finally come to russia. well it's actually interesting that sort of himself during his speech and the meaning of the party or the. deep party he said that it is not wise anymore to use the term opposition

because the way things have been working out in russia in the political life is that according to me the word opposition is not really respected anymore or more ordinary people he says that this term is usually referred to marginal groups of people who are trying to portray as the political regime. are not strong enough to actually become a proper rival for the leading political parties he says the. political party which he now heads has a plan to create a whole new political system in of the country he's currently seeing that it's united russia party which holds the monopoly over the political life in the country and thinks this is no way to hold politics in a democratic system that's why a second party at least

a second party is needed to balance the political or life in the country and says that their party. has the resources and the potential to become the second force in the country now you're going. to make a name for himself as a successful businessman but you spoke to him after the party's meeting today what did he tell you about his expectations from a political career. we were able to meet. after his speech at the party's meeting here and he said he would never go through with this and start going through this if it was not sure in his own potential in his resources and in the idea that he would be supported by ordinary people in russia and to the party would be supported by ordinary people as well in fact we call profit of says that the party has exact goals which are to

get into parliament during the next parliamentary paul in russia and perhaps even get the leading spot becoming at least the second most powerful political force perhaps the biggest powerful political force in the country when i asked him if he perhaps was planning to run for president in the future he said it was too soon to talk about that but perhaps he can picture himself on the seat of the prime minister let's listen to what nicole said. i'm not the kind of person who chance a dream or plunge into illusions we have particular goals to get into russia's lower house of parliament with the maximum number of votes but i also understand is that i could be a good prime minister if the party successful i would fight for disposition. is quite

a colorful figure stock about starting from his height which is were true meters height two very successful business story here is one of the wealthiest the men in russia and in the world he's known to be quite keen of course there's a lot of hardy's that this man is taken from just these two martial arts he does all of the new jersey nets basketball team in the united. states so a very successful result is shown by this man in whatever he does including this the latest project in the industry the go mobile which is his latest development in the vicenza which is not yet being produced but there are already orders for five or even ten years ahead this is according to me and he says that he should be supported by the population of russia because of this party stands for

innovation for a modernization and for building up democracy in the country and for improving the current political regime oh it could make for interesting times for the two thousand and twelve elections i've got this going off a lot in moscow thank you. well i don't forget to check out our r.t. online we have a lot more news and eye catching videos on our website here's was lined up for you right now. dot com. by any other name correspondents found in bin laden's compound reveals the top terrorist was planning to read brand his organization admitting to losing a p.r. war with the west. and a winter fairy tale in the middle of summer a moscow park swap or frosty fun for those who miss the skiing and snowball fights but if you're tired of the summer heat head over to artsy dot com.

well it has one of the most unpredictable climates in the world but for people who go to antartica in the name of science dealing with environmental extremes is a daily reality any the rather the latest of a series of special reports artie's sean thomas has witnessed how people survive at the ends of the earth. antarctic storms are known to be fierce sometimes forcing those who have to endure them to take safe harbor and it was pretty bad it was. and it worker bees were carried through thirty. years the book was rolling around. in that kids. get in between as well so we're rolling around. trying to make a good road or. else you really want the crew of this ship was able to pull through the temper stand even work with nearby stations to repair their damaged vessel if you were lucky operating in such

a remote environment means replacement parts aren't always available and the workers here have to make do with what they can it is pretty hard to get here and good equipment to get here sophisticated equipment so one one challenges to try to me. you're a big size that was a very small amount of. paratrooper is considered one of the most dangerous environments on the quiet and because of this are bringing down here. we could be downright deadly during the same storm the crew from the. base lost one of their team when a jeep wall down an embankment into a frigid antarctic lake. but it was most difficult experience of my career and such moments i start to think that good just wants us to try it out here. but in antarctica time is a valuable commodity and work crews have limited time to prepare the base for winter after the accident happened we didn't even have time to make

a stop which the moment required a stop to think to express compassion we had to go on with our work which we finished at about four am the next day the incident sparked an outpouring of international support from the surrounding bases but in a twist all too appropriate for the harsh realities of working in antarctica the chilean air force plane that was to airlift of the body back to south america suffered an explosion in the left engine as it was taking off the pilots on board of hurting another seal tragedy matter of seconds still the southern can't doesn't provide the opportunity to dwell on the difficulties. the key things all problems as soon as possible which in sea will be lost when there is no immediate response to cautions and avoid actions let me get one of those hurt for example when the airplane engine failed we have avoided doing anything that could have gotten any of us hurt in any way so we got healthier than anybody else and here we are void in

your wrists until another airplane arrives when a system derived from unfortunate necessity which keeps those living and working in the face of danger and safe is possible in antarctica shan thomas. now you can always get extra videos and read more about sean's adventures in all corners of the world on his blog out of course on our website at all at sea dot com. more than a month. in one of the most extreme environments on the planet this is and charge it up and people have to be aware that they're far away from civilization sean thomas discovers flight make sense articles so special and attractive for many wildlife in antarctica is close and the friends of. the expedition to the bottom of the earth are teams. going to actually moscow out seem to retrace his steps all that far off the bolshevik revolution in

the russian capital but before that though i'll be about to remind you about top stories at this hour do stay with us. he.