the e.u. hits out that credit rating agencies saw after a downgrade of portugal's debt to junk status leaves world markets panicking over a fearsome bail out and a knock on effect elsewhere. high profile photographers are arrested in georgia suspected of spying as nine others are convicted for espionage the country's opposition says the government is of muscling the press to cover up its own problems. and greece the last of the boats headed to blockade didn't go well the u.n. is expected to publish a long awaited report on israel's deadly assault on last year's a flotilla. pressures of foreign minister describes a nato has a role in libya as cynical saying it comes at too high a price of civilian deaths they continued.

global news from the heart of moscow this is artsy welcome to the program unjustified and unfair but with the power to determine the fate of entire countries that's the verdict of germany's finance minister on the world's big three credit rating agencies after portugal had its debt downgraded to junk status the move is having a disastrous effect on the e.u. ripping apart the relative calm bored by a second a greek bailout the panic is proving contagious with fresh fears emerging that ireland may also need another cash injection that comes as germany the e.u.'s biggest economy debate the very legality of the bailout more on this we're joined by patrick young a writer and editor life in poland. thank you for joining us today mr young so moody's the rating agency behind the move has been involved in

a number of scandals from claims of blackmail to labeling junk assets out. aaa back in two thousand and eight when liable for their writings well look this is the really interesting situation isn't it really i mean what we've seen is the european union to three years ago said the problem with credit ratings were that their their ratings couldn't be trusted then all of a sudden when they actually come up with plausible ratings against the european union suddenly the finance ministers such as mr showed lar saying that oh these are discreet small companies because actually they're trying to get at the truth the situation is absolutely true i mean a company like moody's which had i think a largely french organized department doing european sovereign debt until quite recently got many things absolutely wrong in the boom in the bubble but actually one of the biggest things that they got wrong was the fact that they weren't being pragmatic enough when it came to the debt and the debt problems of the european union not their being almost and suddenly the politicians want to shut them up because simply the european union has a fundamental problem which is that multiple members of the euro zone are insolvent

by c.s.a. the moody's a downgrade is accurate and justified but euro skeptics are hearing that the downgrade award was ok and that the e.u. is using this as an opportunity to gain more control over ratings agencies would you agree with that absolutely look the european union has been operating a pogrom against ratings agencies for several years first of all they argued up that can't be relied upon so therefore we have to do something to regulate them not they're saying oh well we can't trust them because they're saying something that's against the european union you can't have it both ways i mean it seems to me richly ironic that in the course of the last twenty years we've gone from a situation where it used to be that the western european media was giving us all sorts of truth and useful information and not we're talking in russia today in order to be able to have a reasonable and decent conversation about the legitimate business of the ratings agencies rory now if even if the downgrade that was justified shouldn't moody's have held off to preserve confidence and allow the e.u. to recover. well no hang on

a second you know these ratings are indicative the whole point of a ratings agency is to basically give someone a school report it tells you that you know if johnson isn't doing his work then johnson needs to improve cetera no realistically i think the question the ratings agencies must ask themselves because they were at fault here was why they didn't give better ratings a couple of years ago when it was absolutely clear to a large number of us that the european union have really significant problems and they were caught up in the way of the euro euphoria that was going on at that stage however you know they're just doing their jobs and frankly the business of shooting masson sure isn't going to get anybody anywhere i mean that would be as ridiculous as saying we shouldn't discuss this on russia today because actually once the truth gets there and once we have a greater discussion but that's going to be for the economy it's a very very unfortunate situation and actually the e.u. itself has been dragging its feet for eighteen months over problems in portugal and greece and the difficulty therefore is that the e.u.

hasn't acted fast enough and hasn't tried to cure the situation moody's are merely reflecting that and quite honestly i think they were in an invidious position because no matter what they would have said when they would have said that some people would obviously be regarded as calls for play and now if i may just jump in for a moment here you have said that greece and portugal should sell their gold reserves but considering athens only has about five billion dollars worth and that's been about twenty five billion wouldn't it just further erode confidence do you think oh look i think it's very simple i mean if you are are you can't pay our debts rory then we have to sell whatever assets we have before we go forward and i think it's fairly new to chris i mean in the case particularly of portugal who to a certain degree i sympathize with because i don't think they've been run as a reckless economy in the course of the last ten years but nonetheless they have assets they can sell them twenty billion euros or twenty billion dollars or whatever it is that they actually hold in totality and gold would be something that could help them considerably. and i think from greece well you know what i mean

everyone ultimately gets fed up with someone who just keeps passing the begging bowl back in their fears with comprehensibly doing something to try to help the situation and i think that it would be a very very neat thing if greece were willing to sell their gold reserves because at least that would choose someone willing to write their economy to deal with their taxation problems and to do with the fundamental problem of the public services and it's a patrick young life in toronto in poland thank you very much and. now are the cash strapped e.u. is giving christine legarde much to think about in her first days in charge of the i.m.f. she's told reporters that she is picking up the baton from her predecessor to deal with the problems and reforms that began under dominic strauss kahn but r.t. is a christina reports there's still more interest in muckraking than money matters. from violent on the streets of the middle east. to protests in north africa to

europe. or portugal's credit rating has been deemed junk. and in greece. where unemployment hovers at about sixteen percent and the debt crisis has sparked anger nearly all of this anger stemming from poverty and failed economic policies in the us as well high unemployment sits atop a mountain of problems like housing prices and slow financial growth. this is the world christine legarde inherits as she begins at her new post as managing director of the international monetary fund and her first formal meeting with the press at the i.m.f. headquarters in washington she seemed optimistic in her hopes the international monetary fund is here to serve and to provide services to its hundred and eighty seven members it's not the sexiest of news stories but still the inaugural press conference for the new managing director of the i.m.f.

did garner quite a bit of media attention most likely it had less to do with christine lagarde herself and more to do with the reason why she's here. campbell what lessons do you think ought to be drawn from the way the u.s. legal system handled this case we could be any reforms in the human rights and human resources policies here do you plan any changes in them in light of the controversy over mr strauss kahn the controversy of course with dominique strauss kahn accused of raping a hotel maid in new york that case now starting to crumble after it turned out the maid had credibility problems but back to the i.m.f. or lugard will take over let me ask you about a couple of issues what worries you the most la garde did her best to stay on message we cannot be only driven by the hope to reduce fiscal deficits and organize fiscal consolidation in

a big way whether you look at advanced economies or whether you look at emerging markets or low income countries the issue of employment. is a critical one the one hundred eighty seven nation organization has already lent one hundred sixty billion dollars to cash strapped nations many of which have little hope for paying it back. so the real questions are manifested here on the streets of some of the nation suffering the most are accepting aid from the i.m.f. has been presented at times as the only option as austerity measures are now being put into place the questions too are in the dollar and how its value may or may not change under her watch for managing the debt crisis around the world will fall at the top of her agenda as the rest of the world watches with hope first ability in an unstable world in washington christine for south r.t.

. ten minutes past the hour still ahead for you why seeing the light could be deadly. pilots passenger liner arriving from work dazzled by a possible green light aimed at the aircraft by someone on the ground not believing nothing but to be added some time before that deadly accident. with r.t. now four people have been arrested in georgia suspected of spying among them a high profile photographer's including the personal touch of the country's president the country's opposition has described the arrests as a public city stunt it follows the heavy sentences handed out there for spying earlier this week to a group of russians and georgians. going off for more details on this. you go to us and what more do we know about today's arrest at this point. the arrest started the late on the wednesday and went on to early thursday and these or some really high

profile photographers to be between the including the personal photographer of president mikheil saakashvili his wife was also detained also the official photographer all for the georgian foreign ministry a photographer from the associated press and the european the photo press agency some really well known international news agencies we're getting word from the. the photographer of the foreign ministry his war that he has gone on the hunt on hundreds of hunger strike in protest to his detention and there are also reports that the photographer from the associated press news agency was released after being questioned now there are reports coming even from the family members of the betweens that they could be charged with espionage or other forms of being the source to their computers and cameras have been seized and. several few. when the

rights organizations in georgia are saying that this is a direct violation of the freedom of speech and are demanding their immediate release now you know what about the other case we mentioned about a group of russians and georgians are getting some pretty stiff sentences for espionage and what's been the reaction to that. it comes as nine people were found guilty of forming and being part of us of a spy ring and supplying secret information to the russian intelligence service on the wins they were given some really heavy jail sentences ranging from eleven to fourteen years of imprisonment the longest one was given to our russian citizen this man according to his own lawyers is good we really feel and his relatives said that they can't believe that this could be true because this man doesn't even know it hardly knows how to use a mobile phone but in general various sky spy scandals and conspiracy

theories are not too new for georgia they have been going on from time to time. for many times since of me fell saakashvili became other country's president just a few years back georgian authorities said that they've prevented a coup in the country and all in all the various human rights organizations in the country see that these are published the stunts being conducted by georgian authorities in order to divert the public's attention away from the real economic and political problems in the country all right how to say you're going to confront that thank you. well in a couple of minutes here and we report on that some how some people in russia coping with the age old problem of growing up. along the west people are perhaps a composite of aging maybe because of the associated health problems here in russia aging is linked to. a loss of dignity.

russia's foreign minister nato for its cynical actions in libya interview with russian television. the alliance his tactic of bombing the country until colonel gadhafi steps down has inflicted too many unjustified civilian deaths has been following what to say. we heard from a very vocal surrogate lover of today really criticizing what t.c. says the essential mission creep of the ongoing outside intervention into the libyan situation now he drew comparisons between what's happening in libya the bombing of the former yugoslavia and fight saying that the bombing campaign by nato against colonel gadhafi has actually gone on far longer than the bombing campaign that was conducted against parts of the former yugoslavia. it's obvious that

politics is a cynical matter we hear from the western capitals that the bombing should go on until gadhafi backs off but the human cost of these political statements is very high. well it wasn't just libya that was on the agenda first to speak about it he also brought up syria he did say this he was concerned that the focus seems to be wholly on the assad government and how to get rid of. it isn't acceptable that the opposition should resort to violence provoking peaceful protesters to join acts of violence and therefore making them a target for police or security forces. the for russian foreign minister also went on to talk about relations between russia and the united kingdom there have been some reports coming out of the u.k. that a proposed visa free regime visa free travel between russia and the united kingdom was going to be affected by the death of alexander young in two thousand and six

while the former. the russian security offices death. according to mr knox one of those stumbling blocks when it comes to the missile defense shield there's been many many many hours spent discussing this subject mr lavrov had more to say on it today russia would be willing to be part of developing this defense shield in eastern europe should they be allowed to join he did also bring up the fact that nothing's being written down on paper to say that this missile shield won't be used against russia which is something that. really isn't willing to tolerate he did also say that there was too much reliance upon dealing with the united states to do some of the idea of a european missile shield belongs to washington and right now there is a process sounder way nato to join this u.s. around global projects europe can only make a minor contribution adding some second tier details therefore are a key partner in the negotiations is washington oh

a busy day for the russian foreign minister a triple header as you will of issues that he brought up today. now a french ship bound for gaza has been stopped and create the un is due to report on last year's israeli raid on a humanitarian flotilla which killed. the report has been held back because of the route between israel and turkey which followed the attack neither side can agree on the wording of an apology. to the dispute is the whole question of an apology and here is simple is insisting upon it for its role in the greens so far these raids have refused to do this the israeli foreign minister particularly to leave him insisting that israel will not apologize presumably because the israelis are fearful open the floodgates. of legal claims to be made against the jewish state instead israel says it will express its with grit for the loss of life. now for the last few days almost round the clock israeli and turkish

representatives have been meeting in new york to try and hammer out some kind of agreement that is acceptable to both sides we understand that the sticking point is over the wording of the document now no doubt both sides want to reach some kind of agreement quiet to the u.n. issuing this report because it won't help in terms of we conciliation it will be much harder for the reconsideration to be made off to the report is issued but we do understand at this stage is that the view is that the u.n. report says that the blockade is not illegal but it does criticize israel for excessive use of force and you need to remember that that excessive use of force to lift turkish citizens on board the largest ship them of the mamma did athens has imposed a blanket ban preventing any ship from sitting sail if it plans to sail to gaza what we do know is that one of the ships the french boat which is called the dignity that has some eighty twelve people on board it's a sail used to date wednesday but today when it stopped to refueling crete there it

was stopped by the greek authorities and now the ship known as the audacity of hope it's american captain was booted detained the charges were that he was in danger in the safety of passengers he has been released but that is not necessarily a good sign at all because another ship the canadian ship that is known is there to heena that ship did sit sail it's also been forced to return to greece and made all the passengers and all the crew on board have been detained at the same time there is something happening that's being called a flight and that is an expectation of some six hundred activists from fifty european destinations flying into israel's largest equipping going on tomorrow friday night as many opportunities as you can well imagine are on high alert the israeli press is reporting that they have the names of some three hundred people who planned to fly in the israeli police are not confirming that but no doubt they will be a lot of attention tomorrow on the airport where people can. to show the support

not only for the fertility but for the people of gaza and palestinians in general. reporting right there from tel aviv on i twenty minutes past the hour here in moscow are airliners are at are still vulnerable during takeoff and landing but now there's an increasing threat from the ground with a beam of lights that are in a retrofit reports on the police hunt for the hooligans with a laser pointers which blind pilots of the worst possible moment. the radio becomes clear proof that the dazzle of a laser in the eye can be a major distraction for food bill or christian ranald it mant and. the consequences could be catastrophic if someone is stronger to it while flying an aircraft with hundreds of passengers on board blinding pilots by laser beams has become an increasing musa's in russia with over fifty attacks registered since the beginning of the year the latest incident was that this most was when the pilots of

a passenger ally now arriving from istanbul were dazzled by popple green lights aimed at the aircraft by someone on the ground just minutes later and now that problem. might be nothing but wrong but yet it's only a matter of time before that that accident occurs we were going to during landing just one hundred meters above the ground when we were only a kilometer away from the runway as a result we were in danger of losing control the crew was dazzled in a catastrophe could have happened. in the worst case scenario pilots can land automatically but not all aircraft can land on autopilot and even if they do those in the cockpit need to remain in control and be able to see. the effect of a laser beam on a pilot can be compared to that of lightning it blinds you. potentially lethal laser guns imported from china can be bought in russia for as little as one hundred

dollars firing a laser beam as far as five kilometers they can burn through paper and even plastic . in the u.s. sales of such devices are banned russian legislators are also considering outlawing them and toughening punishment for this offense though some are shining a spotlight on the police calling for more action courtrooms in court everyone is waiting for a new laws so there's no excuse for police and action on the ground or current legislation is good enough is allows for the arrest and imprisonment of such fools for up to ten years in prison as of now there has been only one arrest in russia for intentionally targeting an aircraft with a laser with this suspect still under investigation attempting to down a plane by other means would be classed as terrorism public concern in russia is rising about the potentially equally serious waste from laser louts and their high

tech hooliganism exude in a grouch over our team moves. or it has now in our regular russia close ups there is our crew takes you to the gateway to siberia. russia has occurred again a regionalized south of the mighty your old mountains and bisected by the famous transit siberian railway the area is one of russia's main food suppliers giving it a rich agricultural heritage with one of siberia's oldest cities as its capital it also has an aging population but as artie's office on a boycott i found out it's another way there is now to to give them a helping hand to the ultimate. she may be eighty nine but the xander avon a man doesn't have too many happy memories to dwell on a loveless childhood a work colored hughes

a hard working adult life at twenty five she married an older man and devoted her time to caring for him they didn't have children so she always knew eventually she . be alone most people used to ask me why i worked so much they would say you don't have kids why do you need money and i would respond if i had kids they'd help me when i'm old and since i don't have children i needed to work hard at least they would accept me in a retirement home yet her fate to get turned she could never have expected when alexander could no longer care for herself and was about to move into a nursing home a local family offered to adopt her overnight she received two grown up kids and a granddaughter who seem to need her just as much as she needed them my mother passed away and we just couldn't come to terms with it we were really longing to her grandmother in the house for advice accompany an elder process around this

family's part of the senior adoption program pioneered in that regard the region six years ago the local authorities say it's a win win for all involved senior citizens receiving family care and they're dotting family getting benefit payments in return. one hundred dollars a month may not seem like a lot but in remote russian villages where jobs are scarce any source of income is valuable. a few places senior citizen in a nursing home it costs the local budget between four hundred and five hundred dollars per month but where they live with families is down to about one hundred dollars per person they cannot make a fact is obvious but the most important thing is that elderly people enjoy the comforts of family life yet despite its apparent all round appeal the program is still small involving only around fifty passionate and there's a cultural reason for it traditionally in russia elder care has been seen as a responsibility of family members being placed in

a nursing home with still associated with shame and stigma and it seems that the idea of living with strangers is not the easiest sell either. one dysfunction or join galene that and her mother their arrangement was it would be only for a year or so not to seventy two and has no children no close relatives and she's deeply concerned her deteriorating health will be a burden for others. like it here we haven't heard a single fight but who am i for them why should they care for me when they can barely move around i don't want to burden anyone while saying that doesn't feel there is a lot to celebrate about being all that helps her remaining time will be brief she says at least now she has somebody to talk to. getting older is one of the biggest fears in the russian society on par with worse over terrorism natural disasters and crime and while in the west people are apprehensive about ageing mainly because of

the associated health problems here in russia aging is linked to poverty loss of dignity and more in this. but at least for these two pensioners it's no longer the same old story. orat see corgan the region. business news with korea. her welcome to business this hour we'll go to our top story europe is tightening belts the central bank has decided to increase its key interest rates by twenty five basis points in order to cool inflation the move could help europe's strong economies to avoid overheating what could be a double edged sword for reform of countries. we should be decisions tight monetary policy means higher interest rates across the whole of the euro area than forty that doesn't apply uniformly so what we're actually seeing is that words in the

pre-crisis period for a given level of e.c.b. interest rates businesses and households across the euro area would face would be comparable interest rates regardless of where they are situated right now we have a position whereby interest rates in say germany are far lower businesses and households and we are in the periphery say for greece or portugal so although we do although to raise interest rate increase does mean higher rates across the whole of us unfortunately is the areas that need least tightest movement because it actually may have the most heartening as a result of this decision. stocks in the u.s. are higher the start of the trading session boosted by better news on jobs the government reported thursday that the number of people making first time claims for unemployment benefits the lowest in seven weeks target corporation costco all sale corp and other major retailers are also reporting stronger sales for june and european indices extended their rise after the european central bank raised main interest rate to one and a half percent and hinted more increase in coming months.