the sides to stop violence and start negotiations the kremlin believes president assad has worked to change the situation on the ground through reforms and his efforts deserve some credit but the u.s. and its western european allies are pushing for action against president assad's regime which they've already sanctioned french political analysts appear believes there's an underlying motive in calls for protecting syrian civilians sanctions in general do not work because countries always find ways to go around that sanctions and saw that sanctions would start the only. go on with production of oil although they would be banning of importation so it's not quite logical and most probably syria would find different outlets for for its oil in every single one of these situations is every time that the west or other countries talk about a humanitarian intervention the question that needs to be asked is why there is the intervention in some countries but not in others for example in bahrain the people

wanted to get rid of their regime but since it was so close to the u.s. it was no question of a humanitarian intervention and there is no question of them ventured to saudi arabia no question of intervention to help the palestinians so the humanitarian question cannot be d. forced political and economic questions you have to find that political and economic and military interests before you start believing in it should manage your own reasons because most in all so-called interventions humanitarian interventions you there's another reason which is far more important. well syria's struggle drags on let's see how it's impacting on the people of the stricken country. has been meeting those at the sharp end of the sanctions. and the deal is a master barber those small his shop was floor until it all ended in the snip our. customers would come from as far as twenty kilometers away from damascus but now the flow has come down

a lot first came the unrest then the crackdown then the west quickly stepped in but sanctions have to survive is to put the economic pressure on the chief the political. the budge and to help the people of syria to achieve a just an aspiration at first all major credit card transactions were stopped earlier this month but that mainly affected foreign tourists because syria runs its own payment system and those with syrian accounts didn't feel the pinch however the e.u. and the us are tightening their grip by imposing oil embargo on damascus so will that have any probable effect on the people here. of course sanctions will have a negative effect on syrian economy it's a diversified economy with a stable death which gives it a certain immunity against these sanctions. and this is not just government gloss in the face of imposed adversity syrian opposition figures are also unconvinced but for

a different reason. because the syrian government have chosen their path and no matter what measures are taken against them they continue down that road. so anxious are sold as a precise weapon to hit the regime where it hurts but syrian album there are too blunt a tool and it's the people who will suffer the most when you are talking about. the what we call it it would be in my life as a serious citizen. but while the power dealers of the west in syria trade insults and blows for syrian were. workers like the idea of the daily battle is to keep his modest livelihood together while hoping for the best if you go r t damascus syria. over libya the old regime may have been toppled but the fighting showing no sign of letting up and the rebels say they've done enough talking with r.t. for the latest from the front line in the hunt for colonel gadhafi loyalists remain determined to the end. to israel now and to allow our

security forces to shoot at palestinian protesters who are preparing to march in support of their bid for statehood at the u.n. later this month claims it's trying to prevent bloodshed and arming settlers in the west bank for self-defense. is across developments there. in some quarters there is talk of a intifada that some will say will be as bloody and as violent as the first two seculars of whom there are some four hundred thousand living in the land that has some two and a half million palestinians in the west bank operating themselves for violence as is the israeli army and the israeli police not for several months the israeli army has been preparing in an operation it calls operation some a c's and it's now in the final stages of putting the finishing touches in place to this end we're being told that they have demarcated a line around every settlement in the west bank and what this means is that

palestinians who approach beyond that red line will be shot at by soldiers who will have a mission to do this so now there also has been intensive training in terms of security groups within these statements they have been participating in goals that the army's been undergoing say seen provided with stun grenades with water cannons as well as with tear gas canisters on saturday we saw the largest protests in this country's history way some four hundred thousand demonstrators took to the streets of ten cities here in tel aviv was one of the focal points a number of speakers a number of artists address the crowd they spoke about making history they said really that this was a turning point in the history of this country what protesters have been demanding for the better part of two months is the social issue justice really what they saying is that the netanyahu government needs to be focused on issues of security and focus on internal problems problems such as the high cost of living in this country and this is a criticism that it's on yahoo is facing

a criticism that he is spending too much time on issues on the international agenda rather than addressing real domestic concerns here at home talking to protesters they accuse netanyahu of being. of being responsible and of being out of touch with what people in israel are concerned about. paula flair there and one peace activist from a joint palestinian israeli and told r.t. that if tel aviv turns to provocation israelis will answer with protests it may be an indication of the kind of provocation the government is interested to to arm the settlers we. already existing for the settlers are not the one to be attacked in most of the cases the palestinians are they be attacked the way the settlers the settlers are heavily armed from the very beginning of the israeli occupation in the west bank and gaza. what is important is not that we have more arms you cannot add

more to the maximum the question is what are the intentions of the government and this is what is worrying me about brute reaction from the israeli army and a brutal policy by the israeli government may be confronted with a mass demonstrations inside israel to. the head of nato says the his military intervention in libya will not end with the capture of colonel gadhafi on the front line rebel forces are waiting for the green light to crush one of the last remaining pockets of resistance by gadhafi supporters rebel negotiators say ceasefire talks in the town of bani walid have broken down but the country's interim government is certain the still hope for a peaceful solution the national transitional council says two of the colonel's sons who had been blocking the surrender of bani walid left the area and then clear a number of gadhafi loyalists holed up in the town one hundred fifty kilometers from tripoli and only been given until saturday to lay down arms more loyalists

making a stand and get off his hometown of sirte and several other areas but sorties reports the battle for bani walid that could prove decisive. they've been preparing for this operation for quite a long time with nature helping them clean path towards bombing military facilities in the area by the way lead has always been known as. stronghold and people from this area have since the beginning of this conflict here in libya been fighting against rebels all across the country and have been dying for. all the time in supporting gadhafi who has provided them with very good emanation and the best weaponry so that's clear that it will not be easy for the rebels to take control over these areas while they need it's actually daffy who has been known and while. not surprisingly remains the country's number one priority is

thought to be right now with his sons in this area and this is. one more reason to take area as soon as possible the national transitional council has repeatedly been claiming recently that is now secure and is now safe and that they're working. hard to try to restore order in the country on the territory now controlled technically by the national transitional council but we see on the ground actually makes. that they are successful so far apart from the humanitarian challenges that the country extreme currently facing such as severe shortages shortages of water food medicine and. politically situation this very unstable the city is full of people with unclear gender many of them very young with little knowledge how to use weapons and it's

quite unclear who is controlling them. while the situation in libya remains tense russia is building up its relations with the country's new government after recently recognizing the rebels as the legitimate authority in libya now invited officials for economic talks which are expected to take place this week stay with our team for the latest developments around the clock. ukraine says it's now willing to negotiate over gas prices with russia after the kremlin said it would rigorously defend the already agreed to an international conference foreign minister sergey lavrov met his ukrainian counterpart to talk energy costs after push for a new discount because of struggles in paying the current contract or to select the shift key small. over the past seventy two hours it clearly seemed that the temperature in this new gas crisis has reached critical level especially with somewhat sensational and very loud statements made by president bush president of

ukraine he planned to sue russia in the international court to have the two thousand and nine gas contracts we buy the also was a very stern reply coming from the kremlin the presidential press office sad that should ukraine decide to take this case into international court in stockholm then russia would be ready to stand its ground and that of the law the international law was all its own russia side believing that russia would achieve victory should this law suit a cure now the situation has changed dramatically over the past twenty four hours with the ukrainian prime minister has out of saying that until the new price is agreed until the new contract is signed the ukraine will be sticking to the current contract and will be fulfilling all of legations. playing up to four hundred u.s. dollars for one thousand cubic meters of russian gas which is the market price and this is the price which ukraine has been pretty much on the happy with russia is not strongly dependent on the ukrainian gas transportation system as it was back in

two thousand and nine now we know according to russia's prime minister vladimir putin the north stream by plane will be launched pretty much soon in fact it's a test run will be started tomorrow on tuesday and winter stand in the months in a month's time the european consumers germany in particular will be receiving the gas through the north that is something which was not existing in two thousand and nine also understand that the south stream pipeline is also going to going to be completed in the near future so this means that the european consumers have nothing to worry about according to all the officials. in the russian energy ministry and in the kremlin and we will not see another gas war which would affect the european continent this time around. their patience is rapidly running out at the european central bank with greece being ordered to sharpen its cutting back as agreed in its bailout the euro zone's yawning debt is widening and the e.c.b.

chief wants to give brussels a bigger role in how countries manage their own affairs artie's daniel bushell is there. could fail to get its second bailout to carry out the terms of its first one that's according to the european central bank chief john claude trichet he said it's absolutely imperative to tighten monitoring of countries in the eurozone calling for a single european government to impose economic decisions on countries according to aaa more governance within the eurozone is absolutely essential i mean if you talk to your column is here in brussels not sure. single single government. bureaucrats making decisions for national economies is the right way to go ahead or even that it will save the euro anyway with growing numbers of people here fearing the single currency maybe a sinking ship talks between i.m.f. and the greek officials are falling apart the e.u. says greece has failed to cut its deficit you also have countries like finland who

are resisting any more bailouts until they really understand what's going to going on in these troubled countries not just greece but obviously also portugal spain the use given greece a few more weeks to go with through with its austerity plan and then you check on the situation in that country of course that's raising even more doubts about greece's ability to avoid quitting the euro so it's understandable why investors may be panicking here in europe at the moment. well let's talk more on the eurozone crisis with financial writer peter build he's joining us live thanks so much for being with us here on r.t. in our new tougher regulations promised by the head of the e.c.b. so will countries with the euro see their own budget decisions taken away from them . ultimately what he's talking about is a government or financial government for europe now this is an enormous step for countries that retain their sovereignty above all their parliamentary sovereignty

and it's parliaments that decide budgets now what is happening is that because budgets have run out of control they're supposed to be all reasonably balanced because they run out of control there is weakness within the euro debts are running up and it is affecting if you like the integrity of the whole euro system trudeau who is the former chancellor of germany he has already made the point what basically europe needs is a confederate from virtually a united states of europe at least in the financial spear now it's fine to say that but to get from here to that point is enormously difficult and it's not about economics it's about politics most governments certainly or most parliaments don't want to give up that degree of sovereignty and indeed most people who elect those parliaments also don't want to give up that sovereignty but then they have to accept that they will have to lose their autonomy in order to save the single

currency and indeed if these sort of centralised measures are taken is it too late anyway. it may indeed be getting if not too late and certainly very late in the day in order to institute this thing the system could collapse before it is politically possible to put these sorts of measures in place but at the same time although parliaments if you like don't want europe to collapse there is a growing feeling both within parliaments and also amongst the people who elect parliaments and that's certainly true of germany the most pros european of all three of all of the countries but there is a certain impatience away in up is it really worth giving up a sovereignty and b. possibly a lot of money in order to save a system that was falsely designed right from the beginning now that's not a question i can answer but he just certainly a question that parliaments are going to be putting to each other over the next

coming months what about pointing the finger of blame to greece that seems to the country that really is dragging the whole euro zone zone down it's failing to to meet the austerity measures required what about just kicking greece out of the euro zone wouldn't that solve the problems. no it wouldn't solve any problems at all because the greek debt is denominated in europe is no even if the greeks were to go back to the drachma they would still owe money and above all their banks would be owing money in euro's money that they would be even less able to repay than they are currently with the euro zone help so although it might be very tempting to say this is the sort of country that should not have joined the euro zone in the first place because they were in fact lying about their budget deficit it's now i mean the horse has already bolted and there's no point in shutting the stable door unless you think perhaps that this will stop other people from doing the same but that's really no solution because it is up to the european governments the eurozone

authorities themselves to check more carefully that the figures that they. being told about budget by individual governments actually are true and we didn't just very very briefly i want to ask you how can europe try to maintain what's left of its fiscal dominance or are we seeing the power now shifting to the east to china for example just finally will certainly try and because it in fact is the most it is the most surplus in the world of course financial power is shifting in that direction and basically the americans are hugely in hock to the chinese by some trillions of dollars to euro only reside with the creditor because if if if over buying a pound then it's my problem but if i were buying a trillion dollars and it's going to be the banks problem too and so the buying is going to have to be robin most people are interested here fops peterbilt thanks so

much for your time joining us live in but. let's return now to libya and the fallout of other countries' maneuvers british prime minister david cameron has called for an inquiry into claims that u.k. and teligent agents extradited terrorist suspects to libya the allegations surfaced after human rights groups in tripoli found documents outlining m i six and cia rendition programs well now let's go live to germany to talk to an emotion she's a former british intelligence officer and he can hear me there. i can indeed great thanks very much indeed for joining us there in germany now one of the libyan rebel commanders who's now in charge of military forces in tripoli wants an apology from london and washington for handing him over to gadhafi back in two thousand and four is he likely to get it. i'm sure there be some sort of whitewash i mean when david cameron calls for an inquiry into these allegations he's been credibly disingenuous under the u.k.

law the inquiries act two thousand and five any inquiry this is established including this in this torture inquiry headed up by subpoena gibson is circumscribed by the very organizations that are being investigated in this case m i five an m i six so it's going to be toothless plus of course the other consideration with this is that peter gibson himself is heading up this inquiry was actually intelligence services commissioner for five years prior to taking on this role so he's been cozying up to the intelligence services in the u.k. for five years i doubt if he's going to unearth anything deliberately perhaps he probably won't shine a bright light in the dark corner should we say he'll be friends to the intelligence agencies but nevertheless we're seeing david cameron the british prime minister being really outspoken about there saying that you know he wants to make sure this inquiry does go ahead and get the truth now obviously his government was in office when this allegedly was going on so how do you rate his moves as a decent call to reveal the truth or is it just simply dishing the dirt on the previous government. well it'll be lovely to think it was

a decent call but actually the whole dreadful dance between the u.k. particularly and the rest of the west and libya has been going on for decades so both tory and labor party governments have been implicated in this and i think in fact the u.k. has stirred up a perfect storm in its relationships with the loop relationship with libya and it's created problems which are going to go on for years now not just for the u.k. itself but also for the nato forces already there so we're looking for example in a morally dubious war we're looking at the funding of the elephant l i f t the libyan islamic fighting group of which this man was a member which had al qaeda links for many years and it was funded by m i six certainly up to the one nine hundred ninety s. and has been backed during this rebellion and we're also looking at issues such as torture and extraordinary and dish and so all of their most dubious practices which a result of in the war on terror seem to be coming to a sort of nexus point with libya but as a former intelligence officer does this not surprise you i mean if this is in the

interest of national security as they're saying that working together two countries at that time on tackling islamic terrorists in in the interests of national security that is justifiable is no. well what is national security that's the very basic question and quite often we find that certain governmental law class or business interests are deemed to be national security so for example the idea of trying to exact retribution against colonel gadhafi for his. expulsion from libya after power of the oil industries that's partly why he became prime number one of course he then funded a number of terrorist organizations but then of course once they were invited back in because of machinations and behind the scenes negotiations between gadhafi regime and mr qusay his intelligence heads and the former government and m i six as well for mark allen who's now a very lucrative post b.p. suddenly we're seeing. a sort of switch back and forth between who is our friend and we have a problem with this because historically you can cozy up to one side and then you

can cozy up to the other but if you don't betray those sides you end up with both sides hating you and that's precisely the situation we're in now i mean they victimized gadhafi they they made him number one pariah for three decades then they cozy it up to him for ten five ten years and suddenly they're hunting him again and it's a very morally dubious ethically dubious but also practically not very effective approach that they have that he too over the last few decades the west just very briefly talking about that switching allegiance but a lot has changed what about the libyan people actually allegedly killed by gadhafi loyalists over the last six months it's actually possible that some of them were brought to me because attention by the work of british and american intelligence. well quite possibly i mean that the you know the hideous irony is of course that nato is going to protect civilians and yet both sides have been killing civilians as far as i can see in torturing civilians and things so you know it's the poor people that are suffering and have to be questions after course as well as these this new government comes in i mean it's being reported that for example they're

going to base the new constitution partly on shari'a law and of course libya has been for decades very friendly very open and very sort of egalitarian when it came to woman's place in their society certainly they might be feeling a lot more repression. just briefly very embarrassing though for the british government and damaging perhaps. totally yes i mean they will have lost all credibility they have double deals in libya for decades now and really their chickens are coming home to roost and i can't see how any government that comes into power in libya will trust whatever m i six or the british government now says ok thanks very much annie good to hear from you live from dusseldorf germany that was a former british intelligence officer joining us live there. while out to bring us up to date for the moment i'll be back with some of our main news stories about four minutes from now is next with the latest business news. hello and a very warm welcome to our business update the pressure is easing in the gang has

just given russia and ukraine he says what all of the current agreement but still wants to renegotiate crisis moscow has said dolly storms it wants to see creating create a marsh the state long enough to gas with russia's gas bomb that's what effectively mean moscow will get access to the gas transit network of ukraine and ukraine's president says the country will not allow this however experts say it's hopeless choice to cookie if. they will agree to create a joint venture or lose the transit business if they want cheap gas they will have to go but the pipeline if they don't want these they will have to pay market prices for gas it will be around three hundred eighty dollars per thousand cubic meters starting from october the thing is that industry in ukraine is much more power hungry then you rule so ukrainian goods will inevitably be more expensive. let's have a look at the markets now oil is losing ground as investors speculate signs that

the u.s. and chinese economies all we can educate you will demand will fall to the world's largest group consuming nations friends lunches trading just at one hundred ten dollars per barrel while lightwave is close to eight hundred four dollars a barrel so in that war is coupled with the bad jobs data from the us needs european financial flow with the markets dropping significantly as a result federal housing finance agency alleges that major u.s. and european banks misrepresented the quality of mortgages they sold during the housing bubble as a result for all bank of scotland and tortured mentioned in the lawsuit word down ten and eight percent respectively. and russia stocks have dropped for a second day after all the country's main export revenue are in a slipped. that props up the business bulletin the up to date more stores and else time for you.

the. machine would be so much brighter if you knew no bounds to move from phones to impressions. means for instance on t.v.

dot com. in some petersburg all she's available in hotels for a story and a little ambassador in a small school to kowtow to triple a sotto interest bill toto golden golden nova tolson for. baltics to dostoevsky. in a sea of colors if you visit. good to have you with us this is our. main news stories syrian activists report war

protester deaths as the head of the red cross makes a humanitarian visit to the country meanwhile russia is urging the u.n. to get the warring sides into talks to avoid a repeat of libya's chaotic descent. is right authorizes its special forces to shoot at palestinian protesters as they prepare to march in support of the un bid for independence already jewish settlers in the west bank claims the sole purpose is to prevent bloodshed. the gas impasse ukraine backpedals every threat of taking russia to court to force prices down moscow says it will stand its ground on the already signed deal he has continued to insist on a price reduction but it's so far refusing to make any concessions but with more news stories more developments in less than half an hour from now up next we are to report on the urgent plight of the world's oceans as the fight against plastic gets stressed.