mass protests have shaken greece over the government's plans to pull the country out of its debt hole by raising taxes and cutting jobs. and the u.k. braces itself for mass disruption as hundreds of thousands of public sector workers prepare to begin twenty four hour industrial action in response to planned changes to their pensions and pay. because moscow points out double standards at the u.n. over the organization's hard line position on syria saying the crisis there warrants only a peaceful solution. foreign minister sergei lavrov says the u.n.

security council shouldn't be contemplating taking action against syria while stakes during what he calls a civil war taking place in yemen are up or not so good later on. live from our studios in central moscow you're watching archie with me and he said now a it's four pm here in the russian capital three pm in athens where greece is gearing up for another day of protest after thousands clashed with police on wednesday following parliament's decision to pass tough austerity measures the government now has to implement the agreed cuts in order to secure a further financial lifeline from the e.u. we cannot cross a two financial journalist domestically finance who joins us live from athens you're on scene parking lot square of course the focal point of these protests how are the events unfolding in the greek capital ahead of this new vote. but things

are really quiet here no one's i gather to get the protesters supposed to take place around six o'clock or there was just. start collecting i was on the square on the afternoon right now most people are probably home resting or looking at footage from last night is a lot of police brutality footage that's been circulating around and got a lot of call phone calls from friends that it but at the rallies that asked me if i had seen the footage so i think that's a big part of what's happening also. another piece of news is that the the head of the national karma groups pharmaceutical cessation here in greece will be suing from what i understand the government along with other people for the use of chemical agents that included. and he's fixing once again and has fixating agents i mean fixating agents and other other harmful chemicals so that's what's going on right now but no no action from parliament yesterday the greek parliament voted of course for massive new austerity measures what are these cuts mean for the average greek family. well if you're a public sector employee means

a lot because on the one hand you have your salary being cut your benefits being cut and you've got going up it's particularly horrible for anyone who's on a pension because you've been you've been out of touch for a while and it's hard to get a job in this environment so for those people it's particularly difficult but everyone everyone's feeling it oh in one way or another even if you're not in the public sector the increased taxes especially to increase value added tax that's a big issue here that us three measures increase the value added tax at twenty percent for a lot of things like. soft drinks and other you know consumer items in addition to all the previous bad increases we saw so the tax increases are a big part of the of the pain is going to be felt here from the start of measures at this moment how wants to ordinary greece care about clinging to their euro zone membership. and that's a really good question then i don't think it can be answered very easily i think i

would say the majority of people are fed up with the e.u. and would like to go get out of it but that me may also be because they don't fully understand the implications of leaving the euro zone that said being. they're justified in believing that there may be another option for at least for the for the government to return to paying its public sector with with drachma and borrowing money and perhaps the rest of greece can get in to use the euro in a kind of buy currency union but i think that people are pretty fed up with the situation and they understand that with the eurozone comes a lot of autonomy and control many analysts have drawn similarities between the arab spring and the greek ryan stephen there could be the uprising really that began with anger against the government economic policies that we're seeing now turn into a full on revolution. sure but i don't know it's going to obviously be different here than anywhere else and and revolution is a is a generic term and every revolution is different i think that what's clear here is

that the violence is not going to go away and the protests are not going to go away people are very angry and as i said this is shifted from being you know anarchists or provocateurs or whatever to being the the large breath of the protesters were engaging police so is it going to be a revolution in the way that we think of them well i think that you're going to have an overthrow this government at some point in overthrow that actually until they get what they want to the protesters in the greek people get some sort of solution that addresses their problems and their national aspirations so in that sense yeah it's difficult to put a timeline on it but it's going to be different than in egypt because in egypt you had a big military you had a different situation here it's different every revolution is different but yes i believe that eventually you're going to have an overthrow this government probably shortly and then. i don't throw the next government and the next government till a solution is implemented. finance journalist live from athens thank you very much for that update thank you. well in your opinion couse visit our website dot com and

have your say in our latest poll on greece today we asked you what some greek people do once the new set of austerity cuts are approved so far most of you think . they should defend their rights until early elections a close second with thirty two percent is the opinion that they must prepare for even worse costs with bankruptcy still looming other less favorable responses or that greek should consider emigrating and that they have lost the fight and must tighten their belts. we have more for you long lines today log on to our website to learn how police prevented a terrorist attack during a drug raid. also this day more than ninety years ago saw the legendary and mysterious fall of the meter in central siberia across caused worldwide scientific excitement as fans rushed to study the phenomenon.

well it's not only greece that's seeing massive one of rats in the u.k. around three quarters of a million public sector workers are protesting against government plans to change their pensions out of the country state schools are closed and transport is disrupted as workers embark on a one day strike artes nor am it listen to the many voices of frustration. down tools with industrial action and also discontent starts here as the u.k. braces for a wave of strikes not seen for decades this time it's three quarters of a million public sector workers walking out unhappy with the planned reform of their pensions which they stable see them paying a lot more and getting a lot less we don't think they should be by students with tensions we think a few deserves to have security right on and people are talking about withdrawing

from the pension scheme because they can't afford to pay the mortgage at the same time as paying for the connections and people are really angry that time and bankers are making record bonuses yeah ok we're being asked to take a pension in our collections to pay more for our actions reality is we've got to fight the us we're just using these people do a huge variety of key work from teachers and lecturers to air traffic controllers and coast guards unisons the u.k.'s biggest public sector trade union deputy chief paul babbly says his one point three million members already for prolonged industrial action we're almost at war fork in we've got thirty million planes set aside and we caught a strategy work but i must stress that's not what we want to do we want to talk to the government and negotiate a sensible package and not the ridiculous package of their proposal at the moment that package involves raising the retirement age from sixty to sixty six raising

pension contributions by workers and having payouts based on average career. rather than final thousand the unions admit public support is fundamental to having a successful strike option the government's very unlikely to change its mind about reforms if the public at large doesn't back the unions but that's by no means assured public sector workers do already get very generous pensions and the cost of those pensions is very much sort of the culprits and the burden falls on for the next generation it really is absolutely essential that public sector pensions are reformed uneven after they are reformed public sector workers will get solved at a pensions and private sector workers the unions want to apply enough pressure to fool the government to change its mind and it's no stranger to you turns it was hell bent on reforming the health service too and senate decided to take longer to think about it causing friction in the coalition the government's doing this to

reduce the current fifty billion dollar pension bill but it may be cutting off its nose to spite its face that the wider issue here according to the new u.k. pension fund you can bet that if you're a part of me if public sector work it's no don't to think that pensions are what while they may stop contributing to that if there was a widespread withdrawal pepsin funds would collapse and that would meet u.k. p.l.o. the very issue was of investments just what it needs it more than ever the unions will be threatening that but is the government listening to your avatar to be loved and. the russian foreign minister has highlighted double standards at the un over the organisation's approach to the arab world it's a game of rove says the crisis in syria and yemen are provoking vastly different and unjustified approaches let's cross live to our g.'s peter all of our who's outside the state duma for us peter there is talk in the u.n.

security council of course over action to stop the violence in syria why is moscow unhappy about. well mr love rove was addressing a meeting of the foreign if. this committee of the duma just behind me you know he highlighted in sets out really where russia stands concerning the ongoing situations in the arab world now he has hit sounds of what he sees as a western desire for regime change in the middle east saying that this was unacceptable and that russia would not support this and that any circumstances he also went on to highlight the fact that this was actually against international law . russia feels a little disappointed to say the least about the way. the the situation in libya has progressed russia of course abstaining from the vote on the u.n. resolution that allowed international intervention there a very disappointed at the way they see that mission has gone beyond the parameters laid out in not u.n.

resolution and keen to avoid a similar a similar situation occurring in syria yemen sigil of rolf pulling no punches he hits out at those that have criticised russia's stance on the u.n. security council and also had a few of the same self about what he sees as a lack of consistency by the u.n. body. which. many have been criticizing russia and china's position on the u.n. security council resolution on syria for the fact that we consider such a resolution inappropriate use i'll give you a simple example the situation in yemen is no easier than in syria there's a typical civil war going on there but nobody's going to the u.n. security council to try and stop it. from their reiterating in some ways words he has said before that russia wants to see a peace through to around forty pounds in the arab world to discussion and diplomacy and not to international intervention something that they will not

support. and artie's peter all over live from outside the state duma here in moscow . there's fallout within nato as france has defined the u.n. arms embargo on libya paris is under verbal fire from alliance officials about why it has taken unilateral action to arm libyan rebels it's the first time a member of the coalition has admitted supplying weapons to the country since bombing began over three months ago there are coalition splits too over the interventions goal some officials claim a peacekeeping role while others going as far as confirming that colonel gadhafi is on the hit list well the u.n. mandate allows military action to protect civilians but false short authorizing ground invasion and arm supplies paris based political analyst john laughlin says three countries have hijacked the mandate. the admission that france is arming the rebels is very obviously an admission that what's going on in libya is a fight between the government and the rebels and armed rebels are not civilians so

any attack by the government on armed rebels in libya is therefore not necessarily a war crime now the words this news is not only incompatible with the case that's being made for war in libya it completely contradicts it there is no doubt that the three countries britain france and america who are waging this war under the disguise of nato of course wish to see the rebels seize power by force and overthrow gadhafi we must be careful about using the word nato this war is being fought by britain france and america they use nato as the fig leaf but nato itself is of course much bigger and there is not unanimity of nato only a few days ago the italian foreign minister said that there should be a ceasefire in order to allow humanitarian aid through so i think that this latest news from france will possibly increase tensions within the coalition although i repeat that the war is being waged by three countries using nato as a disguise. u.s.

secretary of defense robert gates has announced his retirement after almost five years in the job but with three ongoing wars involving america his replacement former cia director leon panetta isn't expected to make dramatic changes to pentagon policies and each camp has a story. whoever's in the white house in the pentagon it's business as usual robert gates was secretary of defense to two different presidents obama was elected on a promise to end the wars of his predecessor george w. bush but america's worse continued and one more was even added to the plate of the inconclusive campaign lead yet when administrative change or change between parties there really isn't a great deal of train in the pentagon under robert gates his watch america's annual defense spending approach the trillion dollars rising to a pace of about five percent a year but statements from his office were often contradictory fan spending that

nearly doubled the base budget over the last decade the gusher has been turned off and will stay off the u.s. is supposed to leave iraq by the end of the year but it seems that there's line is not final he gives all kinds of contradictory statements for instance not long ago. that anyone who would buy things for us land army in the middle of an asian conflict should have his head again. yet at the same time. he's done everything and can flown over several times to baghdad leave from nouri al maliki government. to please please leave us soldiers day after the deadline at the end of this year the pentagon says they expect the iraqi government will ask them to stay beyond their scheduled december thirty first departure date but with the announced troop withdrawals from iraq and afghanistan must started

actively waging a different kind of warfare what they call an intelligent war one that's waged with drones without sacrificing the lives of their soldiers in countries like pakistan yemen and libya and. many say that's the may shift that happened in military operations under robert gates a shift that some say can only lead to more destruction. to the united states has increased the intensity of the focus on the student usually drone strikes those remotely piloted vehicles while targeting carries the u.s. has been criticised quick killing mostly civilians it's also making us less secure from a policy standpoint we can intervene all over the world it just fuels insurgency needs and fuels anti-americanism and always say the deaths of thousands of civilians in afghanistan are part of the reason why the u.s.

has failed at curbing insurgency there now the u.s. is preparing to pull out a third of its troops by the end of next year many afghans fear that less troops doesn't mean less bombs dropped on their homes as the u.s. steps up aerial strikes in the region the possibility of waging a war without having to justify the deaths of the american troops has become more palatable for the pentagon the cia has been at the forefront of america's undeclared wars and with a new secretary of defense leon panetta who was the head of the cia the trend is on life we can change i'm going to check our reporting from washington our team. yes it's a former ukrainian prime minister yulia tymoshenko husband frozen by prosecutors she stands accused of abuses of power the extrem here is accused of stealing highly unprofitable gas deals with russia in two thousand and nine these are said to have

constant crane around four hundred million dollars investigators claim she had no authority to sign such contracts and did not secure cabinet approval to a psycho claims the case has been fabricated by her political rival president victor going to call which if not guilty to most could face up to ten years in jail . a look at the world news in brief for you this hour and egyptian court has ordered a probe into the case against two policemen accused of brutally killing a man whose death helped trigger egypt's uprising the slow pace of legal action against the police riot in cairo earlier this week which left over a thousand people hurt activists are angry at the country's interim government saying it has made no changes to the country since president hosni mubarak resigned in february. in sudan rival forces have agreed to withdraw from its border ahead of southern independence next week the agreement problems separate deals to end the fighting in two border areas which for some one hundred seventy thousand people to

flee. the two are still to agree on how to divide sudan's oil wealth after separation the region has seen more than two decades of civil war which claimed over two million lives. for its journalists are back at home after eighteen long months of captivity in afghanistan the men had been held hostage by the taliban a brother said to be in good health and good spirits the reporter and his cameraman were taken along with afghan colleagues in late two thousand and nine filming in remote mountains it's the longest seizure of french nationals since the lebanese hostage crisis in the one nine hundred eighty s. . now almost seventy years ago the people of an entire nation were just placed. their homeland four thousand mess he exiled by the stalin regime are scattered around the globe and even today are not made welcome in their ancestral land are dismissing a question of what takes up their story. as it turns out the scholar for land which

carried across the world was an inviting everyone and entire people can make their way back to georgia the lines of their ancestors we heard him say we want to come back to our lands in this heart to georgia that's what we've been fighting for and dreaming of for many years there are some four hundred thousand people with a stream spread across the globe there have been left with no homelands mishaps interred so open this quarter past the twice deported people they were forcibly displaced first from georgia and then from was work is done and after almost seventy years of there are no magic existence their only hope now is that one day they will be able to return to their native words it was the stalin regime which deported over ninety thousand miss houghton turks to central asia in nine hundred forty four but they had to flee again after violent apnic was seen as that is done in nine hundred eighty nine most of them now live in azerbaijan and turkey as well

as russia and the united states during joe finally adopted a repatriation bill under pressure from the european council in two thousand and seven but even for years on the law doesn't appear to have changed anything. you know georgia isn't the richest or the most stable of countries that's the first thing secondly they seem to realize they're not welcome there to come to an entirely new country that's going to be our new you know everyone is capable of them. came into power but it was surrounded by so many bureaucratic barriers to collect so many documents it makes coming back almost impossible the chairman of the world organization of miss havisham turks saleman but about cancer has traveled to georgia. peter klee in before you to make that we country more infectious because last year saleman was arrested in georgia and imprisoned. he was accused of forging documents and fraud but his supporters say the charges were trumped up.

there's no proof that he's guilty i'm sure he was arrested for push don't want to stick reasons we can't do anything to help him for now most mismatch in turks continue to leave the law and scattered far from where they consider home and in distant lands their hopes of return still seem equally remote in a question artsy reporting from the north caucasus. more headlines are coming your way shortly after the business update with dimitri stay with us. welcome to business rushes the gas giant gazprom is holding its annual general meeting the company's announced it will increase their investment to a record level but all is cause over the course of the gas forms headquarters money you know what to do make out of this meeting today was most important to your. retreats been a long day here a lot of topics up for discussion but one thing that's for sure and that is like

castro is trying to take a bigger share in the world market they're looking at opportunities in europe in germany in particular exports in the first half of the year increased by twenty six percent and that was due to higher demand in europe and declining production they're also looking towards asian markets they're trying to strike a deal with china south korea and india and this could increase their exports by fifty percent and their overseas earnings could reach record highs now twenty term results were positive sells revenues reached one hundred eighteen billion dollars shareholders will be receiving just under four rubles pushchair which means it's the most amount of money ever given by the company and now the. so your gas problem will be increasing its spending and it's also considering increasing its investment program so i record a forty four billion dollars and of course from now on all the decisions will be made by the new board of directors which was elected here today now i mean across

the keeping us up to date with what's being said at the annual general meeting of gazprom russians the largest company thank you so much. all right let's now move to the markets well prices are lower after rallying earlier this week the increase followed the u.s. in the trees report which are sharp declines of past on this to expectations nights weeks it's trading at ninety four dollars an hour brant is a just over one hundred twelve dollars but. if you have stock markets are high as rick lawmakers approved additional steroids the measures to positive i have to say the footsie is up by half a percent with lloyds banking group surging to be in the lead one of the biggest gainers another bank world bank of scotland of barclays also adding five and two percent respectively the energy sectors are still active shares of oil major b.p. jumped one point two percent world at shell rose almost the same. russian stocks positive for the south lots of positive i have to say again though the r.t.s.

is up by a third of a percent my second by just a notch energy measures of last round with that well actually slightly secular get some individual share move as truck maker come out as is gaining support by news it could create a joint venture with the russian right the mass maybe in the bank is also on the rise hopefully reports that say a.d.r. has been approved for trading in london frankfurt and telecom is one of the biggest gainers up one point seven percent after announced a six percent increase in their profit first. all right business out see we'll be back next hour and fifteen minutes to be exact then join me.

if. i was just thinking about my future before the foreign companies came i dreamed of owning a can cutting factory. but we have less garbage now. some business who come here to make fun of me. figure out garbage boy i'm not bad like people think. i'm

a good person. it's just the people don't see me. but i feel it was time people like me. that i feel people will start to appreciate us. they face here this is not a prohibition but more and i. think it should just sit there are you sure it's a pretty trace recently they have no idea about the hardships the face. they wanted. this is it more of them soonest and for any army to life forever using them is the most precious thing in the world. years of self-sacrifice and heroism with those who understand it fully you have to live a. real life stories from world war two some. of the true nine

hundred forty five dollars r.t. dot com. for the full story we've got it first hand the biggest issues get a human voice face to face with the news makers. twenty years ago the largest country in the world observes in places of. what had been determined that each began a journey. for where did it take them.