just after two pm here in the russian capital this is our now our top story western europeans can rest easier this winter with an uninterrupted flow of russian gas to keep them warm well in about an hour president medvedev and his european partners will flick the switch in germany and start the nord stream pipeline directly pumping fuel under the baltic sea. is in germany for us so the politicians have gathered in berlin and have long been at these the ask about this project will the gas be enough though for european households and businesses. well it looks like indeed it will be enough we're talking about twelve more than twelve hundred kilometers of pipeline stretching from russia all the way to germany capable of pumping up to fifty five billion cubic meters of russian gas to european customers a year when it will become fully operational that is to happen at the end of next year however at this point we're already looking at around more than twenty seven

billion cubic meters of gas coming into europe from russia and that of course is going to happen without intermediary stations that of course is going to happen without interruptions and also so you have to you have to make a note of the fact that it's also not going to come with a me extra cost for european taxpayers the cost to the sweet costs that project off the north stream project is a little over seven billion euros now twenty six of that six percent of that is coming from the consortium north stream consortium shareholders the rest is being financed by international banks so customers in europe will be able to get russian gas without interruptions at no extra cost of course politicians and i think it's fair to say customers in europe are rather excited about this and the excitement was also shared today by the russian president to read who is in germany as we have mentioned earlier who will flick the switch on the gas pipeline just in just a short hour or so and that's right and right now we're an hour or so away from

seeing the first fuel delivered but it has been a long in the making hasn't it. absolutely now we have probably two to over the we have to go back to all the way to two thousand and five when the project was just begun of course there have been numerous criticism from some politicians and economists and some environmentalist who are saying that this is not safe that this is going to cost extra money but for the last six years of construction has been proven that those worries were indeed a futile absolutely because the pipeline is indeed safe even though it goes along the bottom of the baltic sea it's absolutely presents no danger to the environment a lot of effort has been put into that it's also as we have mentioned earlier it also comes at no extra cost and it's not going to make europe more dependent on russian gas as some have said in fact is going to go a long way towards making europe more and just efficient and it's actually going to increase european and european energy security and of course once full at the

regional and that is not too long from now once for liberation in nordstrom pipeline will of course make a lot of people warm and happy in europe. thanks very much for that update we're certainly looking forward to the flick of the switch if you're going to have ever porting for us live. greek leaders are struggling to decide who should become the new prime minister to lead a crisis coalition george papandreou has agreed to go but is locked in a rally with the opposition leader over who should replace all athens is under enormous pressure to act fast and push through cuts before it can get more emergency e.u. cash for us asks greece how they assess the best. as the year you think is rumbles on greece is once again found itself the focus of international attention and it seems like everyone's had an opinion about the situation here in the country we decided to come. which is really be me. it's tell you much of this year i quite the find out what the people of greece have to say

about it all. the camera and. let the people of greece take it away alone we are. well. all the people who. are saying. everything is made money actually. it's like they're trying to frighten us or something like hi my name is vicky. needy and i've been living in greece for ten years now. my grandfather fought for this country and it saddens me that. right now there's a chance you might lose everything that we know in this country and there's really not much we can do and i want to ask. if all the european snow but bowles is dead. but. why do the olympics money don't they want the

money but the thing with the situation right now in greece is that we don't feel secure about anything but our salaries our health and you know. about the. i'm going to make and the decisions i have to do from then from now it's really sad because. everybody here things that you know the things could be better there is something more than that there's something more very very angry because there is a lot of fun and blow you make in greece now. the people in greece are very skeptical about the euro i think. it's better we are in the euro. of course definitely but there are some serious problems. because a lot of people lost they lost their jobs you don't know what. you can do you can plan your life i'm twenty years old and i don't have

a job. i have to leave with my parents i don't have money i can leave i hope for everybody to be calm and. try to get out of the crisis and i really hope everybody can help us to do that goose is a european country in greece and euro is a greek word a greek word i hope something can be done so we can save this beautiful country and be able to pass it on to our grandchildren and the children after that the people of greece the steps up to the mike and had a chance to have a say the question now is whether anyone is going to be ready to listen to them or the decisions again to keep being made behind closed doors surf. syntagma square and. all next in the financial firing line is italy or debts are piling up amid record borrowing costs prime minister berlusconi is rapidly losing support but

insists he won't quit while he's resolute that he's the one to get final cuts through but even his former allies are not so sure well for more i'm joined by columnist francesco a c h e right now well unfortunately we may have lost a connection with them but we will try to bring more insight. all right well now let's move on to four activists protesting against america's plans to use a new south korean base for the u.s. navy has been arrested at the site opposition to the base is mainly from locals who fear it could destabilize south korea's relations with china as well as damaging the environment activists matthew hoey who is near the base says the voices of discontent are going on heard with the government not playing fair this was a small demonstration they went to the conference to deliver a message to deliver a statement about their concerns of the naval disarmament leaders and bits that are this moment there's bar gravity's being held but they say what people at least

station where they're currently being detained this is going to be one of the largest military bases in the world the naval bases there capacity of those bases twenty largest carriers two aircraft carriers. and it will be outdated aegis missile defense system where hair less than three hundred miles away from the chinese mainland is a very attractive location for the united states military and initially there was a vote of just eighty seven people that led to the destruction of the base protested they held another vote ninety four percent of the residents said they didn't want the base government said that they want to know what that results about recently the provincial government demanded that instruction be stopped the military said no biting of five years they've been beaten they've been incarcerated the mayor is currently in prison what i fear is that the villagers of just about every legal option were fighting a very sound rational nonviolent resistance the government simply isn't listening

and they're not playing fair. well going back to our previous story where italy is facing mounting debt and as well as rumors of a prime minister berlusconi a losing support event from his allies let's get more insight now from francesco mr sushi berlusconi he does face up public finance vote right but he denies of his impending resignation does he have what it takes to avoid the kind of political mess that we're seen in app and. it is very hard i mean at the end of the day we will see what will come out with. these political crises i think really is a little bit different than from greece i mean this situation in italy is more a political crisis than their financial crisis and everything in a way he. if now he can win this confidence vault to or if you lose it and tonight we'll see we'll see but how realistic do you think is it that he will be forced to go and what happens if he does. well it's very very hard to say at

this moment because the opposition claims he will surely be defeated he claims he will not be defeated there are. enormous amount of rumors he was supposed to be defeated did it in these conference calls many times however. you want in the past and he might win again today but everything is uncertain eve is to gold then the real. who will succeed him and we managed to get the confidence of the markets because this is the crucial issue italy needs a prime minister who can get the confidence of the markets the markets trust to start to do recovery and the changes necessary for italy to cope with the present

cries it is italy ready for such a big change though and what happens if italy fails will it take the rest of the euro zone with it i mean it is too big to be bailed out isn't it. at the moment yes the moment yes this is a huge security country's a huge day in theory there are talking to economists to financial is there are measures there are ways in which each. part of the. comic we should say have to take place and real. confidence must be boosted otherwise they're just going a little bit taking a step back a little bit italy is not greece i mean you compared the domestic production in italy has the exports and of course the massive tourism industry going back how does a country such as italy so big economic we get into such

a mess in the first place. this is the big question financially italy was not. that bad dissertation is in italy has not war syndrome magically in the past months in fact of for instance in greek banks all day a lot of money to french and german banks italian exposure to greece was very limited however. markets didn't trust the italian government stooges the crucial issue and when the markets started not to trust the government the. government didn't come up with. real strong measures to boost it didn't. i think the connection was not good there. i was sorry we don't really have such a bad connection with you but thank you very much for your thoughts there mr francesco thanks again. well our military action against iran could

spark a fully fledged war and spark a task free for the middle east that's a warning from president medvedev who commented on the israeli president suggestion that a military strike on iran is more likely than diplomacy. via instant a belligerent words of some countries like israel's about their readiness to strike iran or any other country in the middle east is exceptionally dangerous rhetoric we can see that the situation in the middle east isn't fever pitch we understand that the middle east peace process is locked in stalemate that's despite the fact that all sides in the conflict are really trying to find a solution and if noun in this situation someone starts threatening anyone with military action could trigger very grave problems that could escalate into a conflict that's why i think we need to take a breath relax and continue constructive dialogue on all middle eastern problems including iran's nuclear issues and not threaten any kind of show of force that

could lead to a fully fledged war which would result in a catastrophe for the middle east which. by the u.n. a nuclear watchdog is about to report on iran's nuclear activities where it's thought it will reveal computer of the size of an atomic warhead as well as other weapons related work. ally the u.s. says it will focus on diplomacy but is ready to keep all options open quite a call at all as iran says washington is unlikely to support israel's push for an attack. in china when mao and the chinese got nuclear weapons mao made direct threats to nuke the united states and of course lyndon johnson explored military options etc and of course they didn't take the chinese nuclear weapons out so i think you can deter this we have thousands of nuclear warheads russia has thousands of nuclear warheads i think the iranians could do what japan has done because japan has taken it all the way up to actually building a nuclear weapon and they haven't done it they've shown they have the capability it's or maybe that's what iran is trying to do maybe iran will never build

a weapon they've shown that they can design a warhead that will fit on a missile getting the missile over here we've seen north korea had a lot of problems with that so we're not in the panic mode yet but i think what the foreign minister said there is absolutely correct there's no good military option here if you want to make sure you get all the stuff you have to launch a ground invasion which would make the invasion of iraq look nice and right i mean look easy runs a much bigger country the terrain the people there are not in a good mood towards america or you'd have a lot of a lot of problems and now of course they could attack by air israel or the united states could do that and that's the that's the fear i think but there's just no good option. it's easier also increasingly tough talk that's driving away the very people it would need to defend itself that's on top of recent aggressive foreign policy moves such as the ground invasion of lebanon in two thousand and six and gaza three years ago our policy of reports of the israeli conflicts that are

repellent it's conscripts. for years it's been the cornerstone of the country's security but these days there's a real risk these rady defense forces could be left defenseless conscription is at an all time you know about fifty percent of the. jewish males. serve in the military twenty khan is spent most of the year and a half he was in the army trying to convince his superiors to release him on medical grounds they eventually did but only after he'd wasted months searching around he says doing nothing while in uniform get drafted for a. because of this feeling that there would be. if a woman and a couple months later i realized that i just couldn't take part in a longer in what's called the israel defense forces which has nothing to do with defense other than by name and a growing number of israelis agree with him mr friedman made sure she scored low on her army entrance tests so instead of serving as

a soldier she's not doing civil service working as an art instructor in a center for the mentally disabled i have our friends in the army and they saw. how they were when they first came to them in how they are now and it's a lot of brainwashing actually and they just keep you down from your identity and make you a basically a soldier ten years ago they refusenik movement started in israel youngsters refusing to serve in the army on political grounds add to that the nearly fifteen percent of potential draftees who don't serve because of religious reasons and a recent series of scandals also so public trust in the military decline they think about this stuff so chose not to this video posted on you tube says a true israeli doesn't evade the truth in other words a true israeli avoids conscription fifteen or twenty years ago an advert like this would have been unthinkable in those days not serving in the army was something

shameful but now young's. those have role models like activia nodded to former girlfriend israeli model barbara fady who evaded service and gave it to missy relations human rights. absolute disrespect of international law it's crystal clear there's no question that study showed that by twenty twenty the number of military age jewish israelis who will not be serving will be the highest in the growing trend has the military it won't have all the troops it needs especially now as the region heats up and the army needs all the soldiers it can get. to live it. all had to r.t. dot com for more on all our stories and plenty more there for the it was well as the u.n. explains it's discovered a secret nuclear facility in syria part of hears from others who insists it's nothing more than a textile factory. adding history comes alive in the red square

a major reenactment of the moment soviet soldiers marched to tackle the nazis as they made their move on moscow seventy years ago we got the video and the significance of the event at our t.v. dot com. let's have a look at more world news for you this hour in india over twenty people were killed and fifty injured after a stampede broke out during a religious ceremony the incident in the north of the country happened when tens of thousands of hindu pilgrims rushed towards a holy site to offer their prayers crushing many of the victims stampedes triggered by panic are not uncommon in india last january over one hundred worshippers died on route to a shrine. michael jackson's doctor has been convicted of killing the king of pop the jury took two days to find conrad murray guilty of involuntary manslaughter by administering a lethal dose of the painkiller propofol there was an emotional reaction inside and outside court as a verdict was delivered murray faces four years in prison and has lost his medical

license. because i was president is cruising towards a third term in office with most votes now counted in the election daniel ortega secured over sixty percent of the ballots so far that's more than double his nearest rival conservative fabio god they are rejecting the results and accuse us of voter fraud. for many russians caucuses has been synonymous with violence for years its biggest battle now is convincing people the times are changing for the better attracting tourists is a key goal with luxury ski resorts among the developments taking place as but the question of reports p.r. is paying off. these glamorous and extravaganza shows are the morgan face of the caucasus where anxious traditions survive for attention with the razzmatazz of twenty first century life and for many started hand with the beautiful game not too long ago local football

club biggest county and she was barely known outside the region now it regularly makes international headlines with its doubles on the global transfer market. just ahead and i'm starting from scratch i want all the trophies possible in europe as a player to start a new course i've played a bridge across before and he told me a lot about russian football and i do look forward to joining the team the words of the cameroon and star striker and more importantly the record price they were prepared to pay made the local team one of the most ambitious comps in the world and investment is almost everything and the caucasus discovered the land of opportunities five world class alpine sports results the new era of the northern caucasus is coming. and there are actually more than a dozen ski resorts ham but all currently stand empty and the states now aiming to turn that around france has already signed up to the project with one important

condition the dresher guarantees the repayment of funds if the security situation worsens or if there is a major incident the first run in knew how it's also due to the residence of the upcoming ski season so there's not much time left to boast people's confidence in the safety of a holiday in the caucasus and that sense of a much harder task than building five star accommodation. indeed terrorism anti terror rights and armed attacks are often the first things that come to mind when you think of the caucasus because that's mostly what we hear in the news. but real life is. as always much more complicated there is another side to living down hand that's barely even heard of beyond the region but which is well worth making the effort to discover your i never thought it would be possible in such a short amount of time what's happened in some kind of miracle i can believe moyes and it's not just soaring skyscrapers and business centuries popping up pam

celebrities have been ten and while some like actress hilary swank may have been forced to explain her visit the full ounce only helped to put the region on the front pages the p.r. machine spinning and full speed because where the stars go the cameras from my do not push no archie reporting from the north caucasus and in a few minutes the north stream a chairman explains the significance of the massive gas pipe project for europe or more of that now with kareena in the business bulletin. hello and welcome to our business of the south thanks for joining me we've been reporting that russia is set to start pumping gas to europe through the newly built nord stream pipeline and we have crossed the laws for you throughout the day but now poor explains how the world's longest underwater gas link to fruition. russia's been selling gas to europe for half

a century with the first pipeline running to austria completed in one thousand nine hundred eighty seven trading survived a long list of upheavals even the depths of the cold war failed to disrupt supplies however the breakup of the soviet union brought a new set of problems much of the energy infrastructure became the property of countries bordering russia with their own political and economic ambitions this resulted in a couple of so-called gas wars with ukraine and the old bust up with bella ruse which is where nord stream comes in the pipeline runs beneath the baltic linking russia directly to germany it's the longest subsidy pipeline in the world at over twelve hundred kilometers and it bypasses all transit countries at nine billion euros it's undoubtedly expensive but a pipeline last for up to fifty years so there's plenty of time to make a return the immediate benefit is it provide security of supply to europe which gets twenty five percent of its gas from russia but after thirteen years of

planning and two years of construction the first delivery is about to be made through nick poole business r.t. . as you minister. lines why then are pipeline is destined to be a financial success. but despite the fact the project was developed in under favorable market conditions it had no problems in attracting six point four billion euros of investments and it did not involve any financial help from either russia or from any european countries the project's budget in total reach seven point four billion euros involving companies from russia and eleven you can treat in this respect we think the north stream has already proven to have been highly economically efficient. you. look at the markets oil is trading at the highest level in three months with prices little change since monday nights where it is currently trading at over ninety six dollars a barrel well brant over one hundred fifty dollars a barrel markets across europe are on the edge as investors likely budget vote out

of italy banking starts among the main advances shows awards banking group growth three point eight percent so cetacean iraq is up over five percent after the bank reported better results but a phone group that was also up as profit beat analyst expectations here in moscow the markets are gaining as well the r.t.s. is up eight percent while the my six is again point seven percent this hour and here's a quick look at some share moves otherwise x. energy majors back to early losses we see role snapped up over half a percent while gas promise point four percent in the black as well the company's also considering california has posted its net profit by sixty four percent for the first time i'll speak here russia's biggest lender is a pair of bank is on the rise gaining over two percent of the south. that's all i have for you but don't forget you can always find more stories on tall website r.t. dot com thanks for watching.

in canada and the u.s. today it is legal for you to use a bubble bath on your baby that contains

a known carcinogen something that causes cancer most of the shines out of most cooking depend they are sponsored by industry and most of the guys they don't claim it's a conflict of interest today an average cancer drug prescription costs nearly one thousand six hundred dollars a month oh my god i'm a nobody with cancer in my five therefore i predict. because ninety to ninety five percent of cancer her people with funny history of cancer the pharmaceutical industry spends about fourteen percent of their budget on research and development and about thirty one percent for marketing in a ministration. in fact there are more pharmaceutical industry lobbyists in washington d.c. than members of congress.

welcome back this is our to you live from moscow here's a recap of all our top stories the world's longest. to start pumping russian gas to warm up the uncertain europe without relying on transit countries present a debt of in germany's ready to flick the switch to receive supplies of leader. it's a race for the rescue funds in greece with the prime minister and the leader of the opposition scrambling to form a government with enough power to resolve the crisis the euro zone's given a fifteen weeks to sort out making the necessary cuts. and as easy runs a strike on iran on top of the recent ground invasion so. it's not people are increasingly turning their backs on the army many have told r.t. their country is now too severe for them to enter service. well ahead of nordstrom's first.