it's a bargain archipelago. is just after seven pm here in the russian capital this is our take now to our top story prime minister analysis that the breakaway region has introduced customs control on the border with serbia a move strongly opposed by belgrade a local serbs have been trying to prevent the move blocking roads leading to the two border posts and hundreds of them are staging a protest in the northern city of mr bates out to protest against kosovo's plans police said nato led troops have been deployed to the two sites but a survey of claims international representatives are only making the situation worse as they are siding with authorities. on the bush of mollett a historian who specializes in the balkans believes that the move violates the u.n. mandate which is meant to be a force i can't peacekeepers who are actually supporting it there's an economic

component to it as there have been theories did touch each government needs all the revenue would can possibly get but there's also a political component to the sense that he had framed this as attempts to establish sovereignty as he calls it over the entire province and this is this has been the interpretation it's been backed by four and quit to the group of five countries that manages the course of those so called independence this is a major violation of the u.n. mandate by the u.n. troops and nobody in new york seems to be interested in doing anything about it. well we do have a correspondent up the border there in serbia we will try to get in touch with her later in the program and of course you're invited to share your thoughts on the story you can log onto our to dot com where the burning question is what should belgrade do about kossovo and looking at the chart so far the majority of our

viewers think that the best way out is to simply take it back from the albanians ten percent so just of recognizing kossovo and joining the e.u. a little less they that belgrade should repatriate all sort of centrist forget about it and the minorities say that serbia should just build a concrete wall at the border what's your take on this story log on to r.t. dot com and have your say. now in libya fierce fighting is underway for the few remaining strongholds of wal-mart get off these loyalist rebel forces claim they've launched offensives on syrup and bani walid backed by tanks and heavy weapons as well as a nato air shield artie's media financial is in libya with more. we're hearing from the national transitional council here in the capital tripoli that its troops have apparently entered the city of sirte some five hundred kilometers east of tripoli that off his hometown and one of the colonel's last strongholds the m.t.c. report that at least four of its fighters eleven and other reports have been killed

during these offensive seven others wounded and also there is information that forty could have been loyalists have been captured and since we are receiving reports that cut off his information chief doctor muesli brigade would have been one of them but this information is very hard to verify fighting over another center of gadhafi support bani walid some two hundred kilometers south of the capital tripoli continues while concerns over security safety of civilians trapped in the cities and the areas where the clashes between the rebels and gadhafi loyalists opened meanwhile the u.n. is expected to ease sanctions against libya visiting the country on thursday british prime minister david cameron and a french president nicolas sarkozy have said that they would introduce a u.n. security council draft resolution which expects to abolish international arms embargo and freeze libyan asses that. had been frozen as part of sanctions against gadhafi also stylish mission u.n.

mission here in the country leaders of the two nato countries that played a prominent a key role in the libyan revolution that also say that nature mission here on the ground will continue for as long as it is necessary to protect civilians here in libya meanwhile some are skeptical about the real aims of this mission as it's more loops right now like the rebels and helping them take control over the rest of the country rather than protecting civilians so yes now a little bit far from its initial go and as a british prime minister departs libya after celebrating the end of gadhafi forty two year rule at. grows in the u.k. over the arms fair of that one so said the colonel when he was stocking up with new military hardware well critics say it's one of the world's biggest weaponry sales floors and that it provided libya's leader with the means to launch his deadly crackdown on the opposition. bennett has been investigating some prominent

dictators shopping around for arms in london. selling weapons could be a moral minefield but not here this is the world's biggest arms fair and a massive earner for the british economy the government's putting its conscience aside as international delegates shop for tanks rocket launchers and missiles so long as business is being done here it doesn't seem to matter who's buying this is guess list includes countries like saudi arabia and bahrain both regimes that violently suppressed demonstrations earlier this year bahrain was accused of opening fire on its own armed citizens in february saudi arabia sent its national guard in to help driving arment vehicles made by be a systems the u.k.'s largest defense company its products on display here would be a home in any bond film this tank can alter its temperature to changes infrared appearance but like the british government the company can't change its spots it

says there are countries it won't sell to but that doesn't include any here if a country's been invited by the british government here it's it's probably going to be on your list of countries who are able to sell to. make sense of. these right to sell to say was regimes like bahrain that have rigorous democratic process. that will travel because. these protesters from the stop the arms fair coalition they're angry it's going ahead despite the recent crackdowns in libya in egypt both former customers of britain using their purchases against their own people we're paying the price there in the mediterranean because we sold weapons deny all the countries that it out spirits in the arab spring i think is short sighted it's bad for this country it doesn't make money it makes walls. at

this year's shoppers include fourteen country. he's branded all thora tarion by human rights groups a fact the government came clean on just one day before trade began five sure they're very a barest because of the one child did february. david cameron was going to egypt walking around terriers square claiming his belief in human rights and freedom and democracy and the next stop was kuwait and it turned out he was travelling with eight arms tripoli executives but the whole purpose of the trip this trade one of the big traits are trying to make was weapons straight to the middle east the government says it's tightening restrictions on who can buy weapons that could be used for oppression and it claims an invite here doesn't guarantee an export license but defense is big business for britain it generated twenty two billion pounds for the economy last year and the case now the second biggest weapons exporter in the world. with money like that up for grabs turning customers away

empty handed may prove difficult for bennett to london. going back to our top story cos of course prime minister has announced that the region has introduced customs control on the border with serbia which is a move that has been opposed by belgrade and we've seen local serbs who are trying to prevent it by blocking roads leading to the two border post well let's get more now from our correspondent sara firth who was there at the border sara if you can hear me. so you had can you hear me yes i've got it well the cost of authority spying has been implemented what do you see around you right now with any reaction from the serbs. where one of the border crossings you're reading and the roads leading up to it remain bloke's by the protesters we actually can't get much closer when you go up to the front of. your stop by the blow we can see some of the

k. four forces on the ground there in a bit i'm not sure how much of it you can see you can also see of course the smoke in the background now we go to places we couldn't it does look like there's some sort of fire happening on the other side of that but we couldn't get any information from the cable forces that with earlier today we saw helicopters coming across and. you like helicopters dropping off some of the police forces to these crossings but it's very unclear as yet whether any of the people being dropped off there are actually the ethnic albanian cause of a police forces we haven't been able to confirm. this of course or going ahead with the all of the clashes that we saw in july when the course of a government tried to take control of the place following prime minister. ban on imports from serbia that resulted in the death of the policeman and also very concerned not to see a repeat of that violence that we heard. un security council calling an emergency

meeting yesterday at the request of serbia and russia to take control points going ahead despite the warnings from belgrade i'm from russia that this could really lead to further agitation all right. sara thanks very much for that reporting there for the border crossing in northern. european energy giants have signed up to bring the long planned south stream gas pipeline a step closer to reality the pipeline would run under the black sea and be another means of pumping russian gas directly into europe just like the north stream network which was opened earlier this month. ago has more now from sochi. the fact that gazprom has signed the shareholder agreement with its european partners companies from france italy and germany means that russia isn't the one step closer

to realizing the transportation of gas from russia underneath the black sea to bulgaria and then eventually to austria and italy so directly to european consumers and this one step gives it an extreme advantage over rival project in the bucco pipeline which is outlined to deliver gas from central asia to europe and this has spurred concerns from europe for european and of dorothy's about the security of energy in europe and we have heard a comment from. the european energy commissioner saying that this makes europe more reliant on russian gas and therefore this is jeopardizing energy security in europe on the other hand actually the fact that russia will be delivering gas starting from zero to twenty fifteen directly to european consumers means that actually energy security will be fortified as energy deliveries will be

secured and russia won't have to deal with transit countries like ukraine which have created problems with deliveries to europe in the past also we have heard an offer of from kiev victory in the college the president has said suggested having the south stream go not underneath the black sea but through ukraine's territory making it cheap by gazprom and said there's no point in doing that because the whole goal of the pipeline is to bypass transit countries. well you can find out more on that story in our business bulletin coming up in about ten minutes time. how america's missile defense plans in europe have accelerated over the last few days on thursday warsaw and washington announced the parts of the shield will be deployed on polish soil by as early as twenty. eighteen now earlier this week the u.s. sealed the deal with romania under which land based interceptor missiles and over one hundred military personnel will be based in the country this was followed by another deal with turkey on the deployment of an american radar station in the

country's east now the shield is said to be designed to counter possible attacks from iran or north korea but as mark grows off international affairs expert at stop nato movement told r.t. those threats are not what the shield is really for. but we know that last november at the nato summit in lisbon portugal the military alliance and dorsy american missile shield plan for europe whether we're talking about as a potential jump to a first strike the meaning that in the event that the united states and its nato allies would launch a very reduced describes a preemptive but in fact the first strike against a nation like russia be integrated missile defense system is going to be in place to ensure that any missiles surviving that in their shorts could be knocked out by it's going to get worse up there most of this is the real danger of the it is not their guns you know talk about north korea posing a missile threat to europe and having the police twenty four three of their suckers

unfold and see just a sense of geography interject or you that is you know beyond my ability to it's. let's have a look at some of the world's other main news right now palestine is an international act of how the protest rally in the west bank ahead of a statehood bid by the palestinians at the u.n. next week scuffles have also broken out in other parts of the west bank with two people injured the fighting between israelis and palestinians took place there a village where battle set fire to a mosque earlier this month the palestinian leadership says it wants to ask for recognition because decades of talks with israel have failed so israel and its ally the west are softening against the. well down mark has elected its first. email prime minister thorning schmitz victory and decade long leadership at the start of the end to immigrant popular party her campaign focus on the country's struggling economy staring public anger at the previous government well it was

a close run election though and she now faces the tough task of forming an effective government with a very slim majority. now there's been a warm welcome home for a team of space travelers who just returned from orbit a russian mass spacecraft landed in kazakhstan bringing three members of the international space station crew back to earth archies peter all over is at mission control at the moscow region the crew of soyuz t.m.a. twenty one a back on earth aleksandr a summer could have andrea and ron garland have been up there on the i assess for almost six months and what a six months they've been they were up in space for yuri's night the celebration of fifty years of month space flight fifty years since you first went into space. they were also up there for the last at the docking with the i.s.a.'s and the last of the flights in fact of nasa space shuttle now the soyuz rocket is the only way

and baikonur cosmodrome the only place where from month space flight can take place now they also were there at the end of last month when they progress module crashed on its way to meet with the i assess now that progress module was carrying supplies of food and water for these people here at mission control we saw some great scenes as the family managed to see the module finally enter the earth's atmosphere the parachute deployed and they knew that their loved ones were on their way back down to the ground huge round of applause when so appear not just amongst the family members also amongst the controllers they knew that if they'd done their job well. well imagine a community where you want for nothing life is easy and work is plenty or one such place did exist in a remote russian outpost but not anymore it's not even a place within russia's borders it's actually on a norwegian archipelago called spitsbergen it was somebody the soviet dream a system where everyone's needs were provided for well in

a series of special reports for our t.x. out of work a visit of what was meant to be communism's example of a bright future. it's one of the busiest seagull colonies in the arctic. restlessness the northern sun the birds the island in search of food for their young new easy and does the early like old because families. of the last reminder of the one thousand lee atmosphere that once permeated this arctic island this apartment block was built specifically to house families and while adults were out working kids were left to their own devices running down hallways and banging doors local residents usually referred to this building as the crazy house across the street was a dormitory for single female workers nicknamed perry's given russian women's infatuation with everything french a bit further away it was a male dormitory also known as london supposedly for the gentle manners of its

inhabitants during its best years the settlement housed more than a thousand people today it's a ghost town but a spirit of communism lurks in the band and buildings this settlement was called pyramid because of the cone like mountains surrounding it thirty years ago it had the highest living standards soviet people could dream of salaries two to three times higher than in the mainland free food free around vibrant social life in many ways it was a task for the brighter future that soviet people were trying to build. snowden will statue of man in steel piers into the nearby glacier most of the pyramids residents worked at a coal mine it was never really profitable he had maintained for the sake of keeping the soviet presence at the strategically placed archipelago half way between north america and western europe. not only an outpost this western most

soviet settlement was also an ideological showcase for capitalist rivals and no resources were spared to cut a dash a concert hall a library a rock band and even this half size olympic pool people here are reliving the true salvi a dream you have the best hopes almost overnight when the soviet union fell apart all of a sudden people of pyramids realized that their perfect life was just that a jew political pyramid based on faulty economy and shaky ideology in a few years the film that arctic paradise turned into an island nightmare people who were used to eating caviar for breakfast had to turn to hunting to put food on the table one of the family specked up and left abandoning pyramid in all its grandstanding glory this pillar was erected here with much pomp on the settlements thirtieth or fortieth anniversary only to become with the grave stone decades later

when the last batch of coal was extracted from the local mine workers just laughed and here it was their way of raking over the coals for the life that always seemed too good to be true. art see pyramid spitzbergen archipelago. we continue our special coverage from spitzbergen tonight on saturday to discover how an old soviet dream provides a means of survival today and it also helps preserve the past we can also watch our reports from the archipelago any time online that's at r.t. dot com. decades back in time. one thousand miles from the north pole. the young team is taking you on a trip to spitzbergen archipelago. where twenty years after the us is ours collapsed between life is still going strong. the world's a long statue of lenin presides over

a ghost where the soul it. has become a tourist site for those overcome by the cold war in this town. the close up special edition on our. all it's time again for the business update with marina. hello and welcome to business here on artsy the money so i mean it's all end as deals get struck at russia's answer national investment form and salty representatives from thirty five countries are in the black sea resort looking for and best with opportunities and ovarian to give them a visit as in the south or resort and he joins us now. highly treatable i know it's been

a long day there are lots of events including the speech by prime minister vladimir putin so what can you tell us what did he have to say. well indeed the highlight of the day at the sochi international investment forum was of a team of putin's view on the macroeconomic situation and what's interesting is that despite the ongoing turmoil on the markets and sovereign debt woes in europe and the united states this view was a pretty upbeat that in a person said that russia's economy will come back to pre-crisis state in twenty twelve that is next year that russia will see inflation of no more than seven percent this year according to the central bank inflation will actually gradually decrease by around half a percentage point over the next three years and that russia will see a gross domestic product increase four percent on average in the next with three years when it comes to investments coming into russia but in the future specified that there's a certain type of investment that russia needs let's listen to what he said to say . that he must strive not only to grow the economy but to improve economic

efficiency through the development of production and innovation we need to change the structure of the economy our common goal is not to be a safe haven for speculative capital russia should create all the conditions for so-called smart investments into creating and producing high tech. and surprisingly enough political person also said that russia will most likely meet its budget to have a balanced budget by the end of the year so we have a zero budget and next year the deficit might be one and a half percent but if the macroeconomic situation changes for example world prices grow we might see a balanced budget next year too. you know i mean true this is one of the best platforms for deals what's been done in that aspect. well apart from the most important deal and that is of course the widely discussed shareholder groups we've gazprom and its european partners italy's any france's e.d.f.

and germany's winters there's also been a wide range of deals connected with the cross and our region where sochi is located and what's widely discussed is an agreement between a french bank they could say do you do. your own or c.d.s. which has signed it is basically about to sign a deal with the results of northern caucuses that's a state owned tourism. providing it with ten billion euros to build five ski resorts in the northern caucasus region but also the sochi investment forum is a perfect platform for companies to present themselves as developing and expanding and earlier business r.t. talked to the head of lukoil the head of you said that lukoil is planning to expand its operations purchasing upstream businesses in the united states and in asia and will also increase production overseas. reaction piece in the next ten years will concentrate on projects like west couldn't into iraq that will significantly change

the structure and volume of oil production in twenty fifteen we're implementing a project in the north of the caspian sea which will also increase in production we think that in ten years our company will increase hydrocarbon production by twenty to thirty percent. so indeed such investment poor has so once again proven to be a perfect platform to talk about the macroeconomic situation in russia but also sign major deals and make new contacts and share ideas. right mitri sounds like lots of the succeeding stuff going on there thank you so much for that update that was a correspondent with a madame call reporting to us live from russia's resort city of sochi. and we have a little bit of time left so let's take a look at the markets france's rising more the states. one hundred and thirteen dollars on easing concerns about the european debt however this appoints in jobs data from the u.s. is limits in the gains that the coats and slightly lower just below eighty eight

dollars per barrel and that's after recording a decent upturn in the day before over in the u.s. markets are extending weekly gains and that's ahead of a measure of consumer confidence that could show better results and september than last month european stocks are higher for fourth day amid speculation word that action by policymakers will be able to ease the region's debt crisis banking shares are leading the gains on the footsie and the dax has advanced even further it's gaining over two percent this hour and here in russia the markets and of the trade in session in the red despite gains in the morning i mean let's say investors a rush were hesitant to make big moves as the finance ministers summit in poland the r.t.s. slipped below six hundred points losing over a one and a half percent this hour. and that's how business looks the sour the headlines are next with tesla. if.

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welcome back you're watching r t here's a recap of the main stories we're covering today the u.s. seems powerless to prevent a threat of violence on service border where the breakaway kossovo has some security council members for a few support russia's call for talks possibles prime minister has announced that the self declared republic asop customs control on the border while local serbs tried to stop them by blocking roads leading to the checkpoints. fierce fighting is underway in libya where former rebels claim that they are advancing on two of the few remaining gadhafi strongholds here found sivana cigarettes and bani walid are backed by tanks and heavy weapons as well as a nato air shield. also the much and.