here on r t our top story senior officials from the e.u. and i.m.f. are expected in greece to study its progress in tackling its crippling debt they'll then decide whether to release further beller cash this follows are angry protests tuesday after the government passed the most unpopular round of austerity measures yet our correspondents are referred has more from athens. we saw a very positive rhetoric yesterday for the greek prime minister george patton jr he was in berlin just seeing the heads of industry that we had very similar statements coming from the german chancellor and now we know that the code it team heading to greece and they're going to be holding talks here about whether to release the next tranche of money the eight billion years and greece really opened the way for the team to return here by a passing the very unpopular property tax that happened quite late yesterday and it was already known that lou make his well almost says lee going to a priest i believe was the best game to probably add around an extra thousand

a year and he's amazed people here in the country household bills and they're going to try and play that to the electricity bill now just to show you the problems that the greek government face here that the electricity company the electricity was is said that they're going to boycott it's collection of the tax base is still pushing ahead with these but whether or not they're actually going to be able to raise that money is very very uncertain days he really can't express enough the ury on the streets the people outside parliament just absolutely livid about what they said if the greek government is really. pushing them into a situation that they can no longer stand their people showing me pictures of their families telling me stories about losing childes unemployment is right here they really are in a very desperate situation and we seen this before and this really is what is the saddest thing about the situation here in greece is that. the rhetoric coming.

about trying to stabilize the euro is singing these away from the economics of this and the people here in the country genuinely really suffering it really is a very desperate situation and that here is the catch twenty two. how do you get a country back on its feet when the mess is that the government policy. crippling the people. economic affairs blogger dimitri kovtun is thinks the greek government needs to take drastic steps and quickly if it wants to find a way out of the crisis. they need to default on their debt if they want the austerity measures to work because right now you have austerity with tax increases and a giant that and you're not going to get anywhere and the greek economy is contracting so if it if it continues in this way in the short term long term it just means. because you have this giant debt that's not going to go away that goes for ireland and portugal and spain as well and perhaps italy but i think the smartest thing for the e.u. in the on the to do if they really want a solution would be

a structured default of greece portugal of ireland probably spain as well in some sort of way and to allow some of those currents of the country especially greece for example for the public to issue drachmas again it doesn't mean that you don't have to circulate but it would mean a kind of dual currency system in the long term the euro is not going to survive for reasons that we're already seeing in terms of national policies overriding pan european policy i don't think they're going to be able to create a fiscal treasury. or great europe but in the short term the e.u. may stay alive if they allow some of the other countries to begin to issue their own currencies and partially default on their debts. european commission chief jose manuel barroso pledges greece will remain in the euro zone speaking to the e.u. parliament in strasbourg in his annual state of the union address barroso admitted that euro zone was living through its worst crisis and its relatively short history the president of the e.u. is executive arm called for more unity played in the next few years will be a bad case of a fire for an entire generation. or perhaps a lot on the r.t.

dot com for more insight on what's going on with greece and the euro zone and his blog on our website the former deputy speaker of belgium is parliament load of our newest writes that the problems facing greece are not new he claims they were known about a decade ago when it entered the currency union but no one paid enough attention find out why at r.t. dot com. several serbs have reportedly been injured in clashes with nato troops as violence has once again flared up along the serbia kosovo border russia's foreign ministry has reacted to the situation calling for peacekeeping keep the peace keeping forces to remain neutral and adhere to their un mandate it's believed the alliance peacekeeping troops tried to dismantle a roadblock set up by serbs the troops say they used rubber bullets and tear gas in self-defense but a serbian news agency claims live rounds were used as distributed pictures showing x. ray images of the gunshot wounds tension began in july when kosovo authorities tried

to seize the checkpoint to enforce a unilateral trade embargo this in a rage serbs who protested against it and set up barricades on the roads. a serbian historian and author says nato his actions may only make a tense situation worse. nato is absolutely outside the bounds of that much its mandate it is not supposed to be a law enforcement agency for to form a self-proclaimed government it is it wasn't supposed to. still called customs posts in the first place and it certainly isn't be shooting at people peacefully protesting the stern of the turn of events is very easy to improve to situate. by not making it worse in the first a spy not deploying these troops in support of the. seat oh now that they have been deployed they could have just as well and retreated like they did back in july early august again need to come and choose to escalate and they are giving us this problem about lloyd older and criminal elements and therefore most criminal

elements in this case stay with us about plenty more coming your way including a look at western strategy for syria. what they're trying to achieve is to put their man in power that's the whole quest of u.s. foreign policy but calls for immediate u.n. sanctions against a massacres are dropped from the draft resolution as russia and china call for the government and opposition to sit down at the table. first israel says it's not going to back the self-imposed ban on building settlements on occupied palestinian territory and is moving ahead with construction in east jerusalem the move has drawn strong opposition from israel's allies who say it's counterproductive to the peace process washington and london have described the move as a disappointing end illegal moscow and european union have voiced hope of a rethink but israel maintains it will keep building something palestinian say rules out talks between the two sides international middle east peace quartet made

up of russia the u.s. e.u. and un called for a bilateral talks to resume within a month but on a list think that's now highly unlikely. but basically. israel has created facts on the ground over the last forty four years then it really made made its occupation irreversible i mean you've got a half a million israelis more than half a million living in the occupied territories so that it's i can't possibly see how to negotiate sions are going to ending israel's occupation i don't see any pressures to get a half a million people out and i think that's what abbas is saying to go. are useless either you get out of our territory period or they are there's no point in going on with the process i don't think israel has anything to worry about from its point of view there are three countries that matter the other hundred ninety are irrelevant this three countries are the united states britain and germany as long as they're

behind israel's policies or delete even if they criticize as long as they prevent saying sions and provide this umbrella for israel israel is something to worry about who's going to sanction it who's going to force it to get out who's going to put pressures on israel. israel's announcement of new settlement building thomas is the un security council prepares to consider the palestinian bid for membership of the world body wednesday the us has promised to veto the move but russia and several other council members say they'll support the palestinians even of washington blocking their full membership bid palestinians could still gain an elevated legal status at the general assembly where they have a majority of support. yes that will stay with us here on r t still ahead speaking out but then being shouted down. here in america we're very proud of our freedom of speech and the right to speak is considered holy except if you see the room so you can get in trouble so out of american celebrities find they get more than they

bargained for when publicly discussing sensitive issues including the war on terror details coming up. but first e.u. countries have dropped their call for further immediate sanctions against syria the u.n. draft resolution has now been softened and now threatened sanctions only if the government doesn't stop its crackdown on the opposition but that crackdown continues with the syrian army deploying tanks and armored vehicles to the town of rostock russia has been calling on both sides in the six month long conflict to hold talks and has opposed sanctions jacob hornberger founder and president of the washington based future of freedom foundation says the real aim of a western intervention might be to put their man in power sanctions have never succeeded in achieving regime change which is what the u.s. goal is and then let's keep in mind that this was a dictatorship that the us government used one time to torture a canadian citizen name a our air are they supported we barracked they support the dictatorships in saudi

arabia jordan but what they're trying to achieve is to put their man in power that's the whole quest of us foreign policy so there's a lot of hypocrisy here too as well this is something that the syrian people should decide not the u.s. government it's none of the u.s. government's business this revolution isn't alister of regimes should be up to the people of that country because as we all know the price can sometimes be very high in revolutions and that's why it's up to the people of that country to make that decision. using humanitarian explanations for justifying more interventions echoes colonial imperialism according to british author and journalist simon jenkins a columnist for the guardian newspaper full interview coming up in about twenty minutes here's a preview. i do not believe the states have a legal right to an obligation or a duty to interfere no the slogan states is written into the united nations jones. this is not a country to threaten britain didn't threaten any of its neighbors and invaded in

a neighbor it was going about his own business because you got a revolution it was it's i'm sure lost to things with time the main guns enough to do is have move the world. the excuse there might have been something to happen the justification for invading invading a country will make its capital i find quite extraordinary isn't it it's a noble concept. we tend to do it in countries where we have some interest in the struggle we tend to enter the way we think is almost quit glory to be had as was the case if you are all pretty was the case here who i know is not a responsibility there is no british empire anymore. former ukrainian prime minister yulia timoshenko back in court for day two of the hearings after a two week break she's accused of abuse of power during gas deals with russia in two thousand and nine claims she denies today's session will hear evidence from a representative of nafta guys the company that claims her deals brought almost two

hundred million dollars worth of losses on trial since june to machine who was arrested in august on charges of attempting to arrest sparked mass protests in ukraine's capital with some of her supporters and with police. turning now to some other stories making headlines across the globe libya's national transitional council says it thinks colonel gadhafi is hiding in the west of the country and protected by loyalists along the algerian border while fighting continues in the city of sirte where more than two hundred thousand libyans. are in danger are in danger of being caught up in the clashes severe food water and power shortages have also been reported meanwhile u.s. media says an estimated twenty thousand heat seeking missiles were stolen in libya and it's not known who now has the. afghan police say eight officers have been shot dead three others wounded in a militant attack on a checkpoint in the country's south this a day after sixteen civilians were killed in a different province when their station wagon struck

a roadside bomb eleven of the victims there were children the taliban's been stepping up assault across the country to recent months as nato begins its withdraw it begins to withdraw some of its combat troops. iraq has made its first payment on a three billion dollars deal to buy eighteen f. sixteen fighter jets including training and weaponry from the u.s. the planes which will be delivered next year are to protect the country's air sovereignty after the american military leaves there are some forty four thousand u.s. troops in iraq all scheduled to withdraw by years in iraq is hoping to buy a team or fighter jets it is still awaiting us a group. turning to yemen where forces loyal to a tribal leader have shot down a government or plane i was bombing their positions north of the capital the jet fighter was down by anti-aircraft guns near the on the region where insurgents overran an army base earlier this week the capture comes after weeks of intermittent fighting between pro and anti-government forces president ali abdullah

saleh who is under international pressure to step down return to the country last friday sparking violence in which dozens were killed. and still ahead this hour dropping out of school for a life of picking cotton we were born on how millions of in india suffer abuse while working plantations across the country. but first in the united states where anyone has the right to speak their mind but those opinions can sometimes carry a high price at least that's been the experience of some high profile figures who have lost their jobs or their reputations after voicing their views especially when it comes to some hot button issues as he's got a reports. it's an american icon legendary singer world war two veteran and pacifist tony bennett has come under fire for speaking his mind on a radio talk show he said america's actions of the broad have provoked terror with the terrorists or with the terrorists or are they the terrorists well two wrongs don't make a right but the one who started with the plane flying into the world trade center

what do you do oh i don't know about tony bennett was attacked afterwards with stinging criticism from some quarters then he went to great lengths to apologize to those his remarks may have offended i'd like to say that i am sorry if my state certainly suggested anything other than an expression of my love for my country america calls itself the land of the free but some are asking why our living legend like tony bennett has to apologize for his thoughts there's no tolerance really for any deviation from the official line even though here in america we're very proud of our freedom of speech and the right to speak his skin siddur the holy except if you say the wrong things you can get in trouble and artists have musicians have now tony bennett to speak question freedom of speech proved no defense in protecting the jobs of a number of public figures in america sacked after comments that appeared to challenge conventional u.s.

establishment views journalist helen thomas who'd been a white house reporter for over half a century was forced to resign after she said he's really should leave land they taken from palestinians everybody has been fired for what they say these days you can you but not if you say anything about the president the united states didn't call him anything in the book but you can't say anything about israel. automatically makes you any systematic cnn's former senior editor of middle east affairs davian nasr was sacked a year ago because of a tweet she wrote about her respect for a lebanese cleric who had one time had been seen as the spiritual leader of the hezbollah but had later broken ties with them there also apologized but was promptly pushed out of the u.s. mainstream media it's all about consequences social and economic just pressure rather than real censorship politicians expressing ideas against the establishment

if you come under fire true like congressman ron paul who is running for president i'm some of in la and i don't think i have been a christian. they have been explicit and they wrote. that we attacked we attacked america because you had bases on our holy land in saudi arabia you do not give palestinians are fair treatment and you have been bombing. i didn't say that i'm trying to get you to understand what the motive was behind the bombing at the same time we have been bombing and killing hundreds of thousands of iraqis or near would you be annoyed if you're not annoyed by who got in there some problem booed and labeled unpatriotic by some just like tony bennett was when he spoke his mind it's not so much about what these people said that led to them being booed or even being fired from their jobs but rather about the fact that in a country that prides itself on freedom of speech that freedom often comes that i

have to price i'm going to check our reporting from washington are to. remember you can find the latest news updates and also spy logging on to our team dot com here's what's a click away right now. in british justice in the dark as a convicted terrorist gets released from prison a halfway through his sentence. and facebook as. some powerful friends having launched its own political action committee just straight as a lobbying capitol hill. and check out images on our youtube channel of a powerful typhoon assaad that slammed into the philippines leading to hundreds of thousands of evacuations all that and more at r.t. dot com. more news today violence has once again flared up. these are the images the world

has been seeing from the streets of canada. for asians rule the day. finally in this news block millions of children across india give up school and hope of a better future to support their families often they end up working in cotton fields but while they earn a few bucks rights activists say they lose a whole lot more and they warn that little is done to protect the children from being physically emotionally or even sexually abused are reports from. from across the street sixteen year old navin precise can hear the chatter of children a few years younger than him going to school but his school going days are long gone for side was taken to work on cotton plantations with the dream of making money for his family i went to the farm where i work from four am to six pm every day twenty six of us children work i came home as i wasn't paid so the work i did

was for nothing. he was promised the equivalent of around two dollars per day but left the plantation that summer with nothing r t obtain this hidden camera video from social workers who say that these children are regularly sleep deprived hungry overworked and oftentimes physically verbally and sexually abused but they use these visuals to provide evidence to policemen in the area so they could conduct a raid and save the children. we need to highlight that the eula of b.c. culture and history with the blood and hard work of children woken from eighteen hours we have seen many cases of go look it's been raped the children are taken to the cotton plantations each summer and used to pick cotton their fingers are better able to pick the plants and the farmers can lower costs by paying them less than adults agents or middlemen say they're just trying to help the kids make money and that they too ended up getting cheated in the process when the going to get a leg

a one with fifteen we. can give him a lot of the move commission. in many rural parts of india schools for children above the age of fourteen are rare so parents believe that if they send their kids away to work at least they won't have to worry about how to feed them seventeen million children in this country are engaged in labor work agriculture is actually not included in the child labor prevention act seventy percent of india's economy is dependent on agriculture so many people argue that banning it would actually prevent children from working in the fields with their parents. experts say that it's a problem that stretches far beyond india these plantations harvest bt cotton the scientific abbreviation for genetically modified cotton monsanto an american agricultural company that critics say has a monopoly on agricultural practices around the world sells bt seeds to these

farmers boss who many international companies are investing in and involved in the bt call to move the cost of production is too high multi-national companies won't like that work for now the victims of this mass the scare children can barely speak about their time at the plantation. i came back home now i want to go back twenty six of us were cheated by the. cheated out of a childhood for the greedy to make a buck preassure there are t. india. green americans up next with the business news stay with us here on r.t. . or welcome to our business report here on our to you thanks for joining me is antitrust authorities have raided european offices of gas problem over possible breaches of competition rules the company's partners are. and the are also subjects in the investigation now for more i'm joined by

a bushell who is in brussels hello today so what are the allegations against gas problem. well that's right there was a coordinated raid across the. suppliers and intermediaries companies like german energy major all w.-e. who then supply heat and electricity or to consumers like homes and offices there is a price fixing fears the relationship between supplier and intermediary too cozy and there's not enough competition on the gas markets in europe the european commission has issued a statement saying it suspects exclusionary behavior such as malky politician and obstacle to network access barriers to supply diversification as well as possible exploitative behavior such as excessive prices now around one in four homes in europe all supplied by gazprom through these joint national champions twenty sites in ten countries have been reviewed principally in central and eastern europe is

being seen here in brussels as a final big check up before the european union opens up its national gas markets to international competition. and what is gas from got to say about all of this that we're seeing. from says it's ordinary practice and official in its exports omar did such inspections a standard within the framework of competition rules under have been applied regularly to all of the leading european energy companies there was a similar investigation in two thousand and five which found that gazprom didn't breach any and she trusts regulation it follows a new complaint from lithuania which are whose energy minister says economic and political pressure exercised by the monopolistic gas supply aims to stop competition. from noise those claims. ok thank you daniel bushell reporting live from brussels on that he always rates. offices thanks very much for that. now let's look at the markets russian markets regain their post or

where they have sat in the park is gaining a quarter of a. let's take a look at some. individual album isaac's right now energy majors are trading in negative territory lower crude. after losing more than one percent meanwhile concerns about european debts awaiting on financials spare bank is losing one point eight percent this hour and among the gainers is now a snake hill gaining seven percent the company jumped the most in three weeks after it started accepting bids for its four billion dollars buyback program. and markets are lower in europe banking stocks pulled back following two days of strong gains that's only new jitters over a solution to europe's debt problems banking group one point six percent while hedge fund manager man group tumbled seventeen percent after reporting the shop all in its assets under management bankers topping the losers list all the ducks

dropping four percent and all this heading for the biggest quarterly decline since two thousand and eight spots on speculation that fuel demand will drop as the u.s. economy slows and europe's debt crisis but as consumer sentiment brant blend is trading at one hundred six dollars per barrel while the w.c. is it eighty three dollars per barrel. that's all the time we have for on this business report but i'll be back with more about forty five minutes expert.

on. the looming move. to. the bank. culture is that so much now lot of people are curious will balance it all worth

a difference western liberal to mention is and is it ever justified for such military interventions within the confines of international long is there a case where. twenty years ago just country. disintegrates into the. plus how did you train. to teach be gender journey. where did it take. down the official. called touch from the. lights on the go. video on demand. and. with the palm of your. question.

two thirty pm in moscow these are your r.t. headlines the grim financial feat of greece under scrutiny from european and i.m.f. the visuals they're due in athens to assess the scale of the country's progress in reducing debt after thousands of greeks united in protest against the government's latest round of austerity measures. nato peacekeepers and kosovo have injured seven the serbs in clashes at the border area the alliance says it used rubber bullets but a local news agency claims a live rounds were fired and was released x. rays which it says show shotgun show gunshot wounds of the victim. international community condemns israel's decision to build new settlements on occupied territory palestinians say the israeli move rules out any chance of bilateral talks.