past. reports. recently. now the latest country to be dragged into the. italy has a strong economy. its

lead could now face a similar fate these countries having to seek a legend. despite being one of the year isn't largest economy we're not greece we're not greece because we have a lot of savings we are not greece because we have been very prudent in this recession we haven't done big deficits in this recession may not be greece but with a man that soaring borrowing costs just how did italy and in this situation right now nobody. nobody spending in all or all of europe consumers are not spending they are saving they're scared to death of what's going to happen meeting you is in to most to be. tougher forms in a large part of was made with getting growth in the country so you difficult hopes are now pinned on a new government being able to bring about positive change we have had too many years. that was not credible outside and. i don't think it's only.

i mean there's quite. a mr berlusconi was not able to deliver what he promised i think there might be a transfer somebody else. but that's not going to be enough. we need support from europe otherwise everybody and that's the scariest part of the situation in italy right now the u.s. is saying face its biggest challenge yet it's unclear whether they like details of a peaceful and culturally united europe can survive the failure to adapt and to find decisive leadership at this point and they could be in ruins. and with europe's debt burden growing ever harder for the bloke to shoulder all eyes now are turning to the east in the hope that china will commit his vast cash reserves to say. reluctance has been all too obvious the reasons why are one of the themes being discussed in today's cross talk coming your way at three thirty g.m.t.

. every country goes after self interest and geopolitical interest as well no where near is cutting and strategic as china does and we've got to be clear that finding our moral hazard in keeping us behaving badly either in europe or the united states is not in china's long term best interest either it's always want to see the west continue to harm itself i mean who decides what's going to behave ok greg you want to reply to who decides to measure a very good question moral equivalency arguments really interesting until you come to face somebody who is truly what we went through this whole same argument in the night to criticize the germans a lot of american companies went over there and set up business and said it's not our position if you're rich when you create the board you're equating china of today to nazi germany of the one nine hundred thirty s. absolutely although i think you know china is somewhere worse than. it is.

now five minutes past the hour here in moscow nato may have finished its bombing mission in libya but now there's a full scale western invasion and as you corporations are queuing up to do business with the new government which is rewarding the military victory with lucrative oil and gas contracts. laura smith now looks at how the harvest of war is being raped. first british bombs tourists apart now british companies will get paid to put it back together libya is open for business and to u.k. firms are being encouraged to join the gold rush. and i expect. british. companies to get involved in the reconstruction philip hammond is urging c.e.o.'s and sales directors to pack their

suitcases and head to the north african country the u.k.'s bill for its part in the nato intervention in libya is estimated at just under five hundred million dollars but according to the u.k. department of trade and investment the value of contracts to rebuild in areas ranging from electricity and water supplies to health care and education could amount to upwards of three hundred billion dollars over the next ten years and the british government takes in leading role in that just as it did in the war and that's raising more questions about the u.k.'s motives in playing such a big role in the recent conflict john hillery of war on want says it has shades of post-war iraq when companies from countries involved in the allied invasion were awarded all the best gigs.

journalist john pilger says there was evidence of battering before nato even got involved transitional council told the french. on. thirty five. but u.k. department for trade and investment already has staff on the ground in libya ready to welcome companies. warded contracts wanting to get in on the action shell and b.p. shares rose on the news they were talking to the transitional government and generic firms are up and mark macdonald also reportedly keen both the latter refused to put up spokesman when asked preferring instead to send basic statements which critics say is a new tactic to avoid defending their ethics. so

far the conflict in libya looks like an excellent investment half a billion dollars to oust a dictator with a return of three hundred billion in business contracts when it's all over now the humanitarian goals no longer need to be touted wall suddenly makes great business sense nor a smith forty london. now and ten minutes past the hour here in moscow the u.n. security council is expected to review palestine's bid for u.n. membership in new york or the motion was filed back in september too much euphoria in the west bank deciding vote may come as soon as next week that is policy and our joins us live to a look at what the chances are good to see you paula so bring us all up to date what's in store for the near future of palestine. well palestinians have resigned themselves to the fact that it's unlikely they going to

get the two thirds majority they need in the united nations security council for the statehood bid what this means is that they will not become full members of the united nations and the united states will not be forced to exercise its veto rights there are eight countries amongst the security council who have indicated that they will vote in favor of the palestinian bid these include russia china india south africa brazil levanon nigeria and gabon both the british and the french have announced that they will abstain from the vote then they will abstain alongside portugal and bosnia while germany and colombia might either abstain or vote against it alongside the united states now this really leaves the palestinians with two options the one is that they can still next week demand that the security council vote on the statehood bid this will force those countries who are not supporting it to publicly justify their position and the palestinians might go ahead with this

although they know that they are not going to get that admission into the security council the other option and this seems likely is that they still take the bird to the general assembly what this will give them is upgraded observer status although they will not become full members of the international body so it's very interesting it was just a week or two ago that palestine was given official membership to the u.s. go to the cultural wing. of the united nations the white house came out very quickly to say that even though palestine was given the overwhelming support approval of the white house caution people that they might might have made a wrong that hasty decision when it comes to israel and america they said weeks ago that they would stop palestine from getting u.n. statehood the moment what's the political sentiment leading up to the review and vote. well this it seems a lot of pressure going on behind the scenes the palestinians have accused the united states of meddling and putting pressure on other countries not to support

these statehood but you just need to look at the united kingdom as one example and here the foreign secretary william hague has said that it is to quote him technical judgment why the u.k. is abstaining from this now the palestinians were relying on the british to support the bird and the foreign secretary has now been accused of being hypocritical and abdicating responsibility when you mention the yunis go where admission to the palestinians here immediately following that the united states canada and israel withdrew all stops giving funding to the body so much so that you niska has had to suspend temporarily its activities now that kind of pressure comes while israel continues to build settlements in occupied east jerusalem and the occupied territories so certainly while the palestinians a short time ago had a lot of euphoria that the international community would back the bid for statehood this kind of pressure going on behind the scenes seems to be paying off. or just

have to wait and see. live from jerusalem thank you. with r.t. russia has accused the syrian opposition of aligning itself with extremist gangs which are smuggling weapons into the country only triggering more of this comes amid an increase in illegal shipments of arms ammunition and military supplies from neighboring lebanon over the last few months to discuss the dangers or this may pose i'm joined live from oxford by mark almond a professor of international relations i thank you for coming on the program today so the opposition accuses the syrian government of inciting violence or given all of these reports of arms supplies to rebel groups who's the wolf in sheep's clothing from your point of view. well at least the big problem is. that even the neighboring country should be drawn into. and i think there's a naive to sometimes in the west where we think that a dictator or a regime like assad's has no support and at the same time that opposition must

adhere and here and will always be composed only of good well intentioned people there are groups that don't like assad's regime and some of them are other militant glee committed to replacing the secular regime with a sunni fundamentalist regime and ironically request which sees syria as a geopolitical pawn in its game these are be iran may in some ways be willing to sacrifice the. ten surely democratic alternative. interest regime which will be very hostile to iran because there were hostile to shiites and the alawite run regime in syria was a close ally. has blown up an account of the rain and i would say i would think the reports earlier in the day that claims that these smugglers are simply after money and have no political interest whatsoever but it seems you are suggesting that certainly they are politically motivated here the people doing smuggling may be

doing it for money but of course somebody is paid and i think there is grounds for thinking that in lebanon for instance the explosive situation there is being made worse by the fact that one faction of politics the sunni muslim factions with former prime minister hariri also backed by the saudis for instance is very anxious to see the fall of the syrian regime because it's its rival and it supports its rivals has a lot of the christians in lebanon who don't wish to see a revolution in syria bring to power a sunny fundamentalist regime which will likely be hostile to the religious minorities and so we are seeing there are cynical people who do anything for money we're also seeing people who say the way to paris with the barrel of a car and really from march on words there's been violence on both sides has a tendency to put all the. talk about violence on both sides. president assad is being accused of not keeping his promise to end the violence in the country but i think as you were just perhaps alluding to how is this possible when these armed groups are storing the situation is it

a case of violence used to quell violence. yes and i think we're seeing the regime is fighting for its life we saw what happened to colonel gadhafi and many of his alters when he shall therefore i'm afraid a lot of the people who support assad will feel that they have no choice but to try to on because the alternative is that equally their opponents will say the only way to get rid of them is by shultz and i'm afraid the international situation is becoming. turkey as well as lebanon is being drawn into this the wider forces from saudi arabia which under the trouble and we really begin to see a religious civil war between sunni muslims and christians and jews there are some analysts our political analyst and historians we've spoken to who suggested when it comes to the arab spring that were going on for quite some time now when it comes to these are civil wars as you put it war in tribal factions or perhaps this would work to the advantage of the west or speaking of the west and possibly exacerbating a situation here in the region remains

a tense in the middle east and in northern africa could explode at any time and we're not getting reports that the u.s. is going to supply a cache of weapons and munitions to the united arab emirates good idea that. well of course states helped overthrow colonel gadhafi we might have had no. on the ground but he had special agents of the sudden a category four. and i think there is a danger now that we could see the same kind of mixture of intervention civil war. which in the short term may bring about a regime change which in the long term as in iraq would bring about internal spreading across the region and so i think the desire to get rid of syria's assad has been a way of getting at the iranians could turn out very badly. on the program professor of international relations thank you. thank you.

the former ukrainian prime minister yulia tymoshenko faces new criminal charges this time that of tax avoidance i relates to when she was leading one of the country's biggest energy corporations back in the one nine hundred ninety s. just last month she was sentenced to seven years behind bars for exceeding her powers while signing gas contracts with russia in two thousand and nine and many western countries condemned the case against him a shank saying it was politicized and as a. reports it seems that in ukraine history is once again repeating itself. it all started with this man viktor yushchenko fist fights in parliament street protests and destruction of gas supplies to europe were common in his era as president and it kept ukraine firmly in they had lines the world's media had been having many sleepless nights reporting on the rollercoaster events in the country back then writer and journalist meeting if we didn't publish a book poking fun at all the major political players. there is times are extremely

fun for the media the regime used to media is a drug free society but if you do so you have to braise the delusion every year because it's fun to watch when the temperature rises in politics but for society. which is the limit to all this wildness to which society here is matched with we surely. many now say it was the mass of you should get scared and see which helped which sweep to power and they felt his arrival would become a breath of fresh air centralizing the power instead of the economy were big. priorities when he became president of ukraine for more than a year it had been relatively quiet here but the case of former prime minister units in fourteen months which is presidency propelled ukraine back into the global headlines the culmination of her trial for exceeding her authority while prime minister shocked many. hardly anyone expected to go to land such

a big sentence seven years behind bars. i want to point out that the one thousand nine hundred thirty seven has returned to ukraine and this verdict and the repression of the people we'll have to be strong today i'm appealing to all the people of goodwill to all the patriots of ukraine defend ukraine on the whole fairly tarion regime from the lack of liberties from the lies and injustice. while the so-called joint of arc of ukrainian politics will stein traveling inside the courtroom per see these supporters clashed with police outside . days later veterans of the chernobyl clear up stormed the parliament demanding a raise to their ridiculously low pensions they demolished everything in their path attacking the police with blunt weapons growing social unrest scared the country's president when you come across on your water noor unfortunately agencies tell me

that people are buying firearms and they are planning attacks on state police nationwide people have completely lost their shine conspiracy theories and public protests of late have created and nuff scandal for any media to be swamped with work and the chief editor of one of ukraine's leading news websites believes it could get even worse. the first year human condition power was not come because people expected a better life after the wild years of using his cadence he was filled with madness but at least that choosing was open and predictable with the now we don't know what to expect tomorrow and anything like a possible devaluation of our currency can explode the country experts say ukraine may again quiet down for a while with the euro toys twelve football championship and there should parliamentary election looming the temperature of scandal will most certainly be rising again come next year next year a chefs de odyssey reporting from kiev. and we're twenty minutes past the hour here

in moscow about three or four minutes away from the business news often out of the world update for you some other international headlines five more bodies have been pulled from the rubble in the following days. brings the death toll now to at least seventeen although that figure is expected to rise it's fear that there could still be a number of people trapped in the ruins of a hotel which collapsed in the town of van the exact same region was hit by a much stronger quake about three weeks ago which claimed more than six hundred lives. rescuers have resumed their attempts to reach twenty four miners who are trapped underground following a blast in an illegal chinese coal mine on thursday the explosion which killed twenty was reportedly caused by a gas leak ventilators have been installed to prevent another possible blast for now china is a large co-producer of what has one of the world's deadliest records. while at the. continues its journey all across the biggest country on the we're about to

join them right now. today is another chance to discover more of the black sea coast of the southern cross and our reach and it's where people's love of nature is reflected in all walks of life from saving animals who have become street photographers slaves to turning rubbish into it it's quite an interesting back right here has been delving deep. all you and i have new need to find construction materials. now a bit of paint and i'll turn this bottle into something beautiful. some critics might call nina's are not complete rubbish and they'd be totally right

everything you see in her gallery is made from little margin emotions aside as we are covering our living space with litter need to have contributed so it's good for me to use this waste creatively. her friend alexei provides some creative accompaniment also using rubbish as instruments was up when i started with just one barrel i was invited to a festival before i even had time to work on my instruments so i just experimented and just walk around listening to things and what sound they can make nina collects her rubbish from the coastline the winter and spring storms bring her greatest harvest there for her i come to the seashore every day no matter whether weather or the time of year it's all the same to me or gratian inspiration conservation but it's not just pieces of rubbish but get a second life one month old lee and the hare has just been rescued from captivity

but she'll have to spend the rest of her life here recovering at this special center where as nina rescues pieces of rubbish the staff at this park rescue far more vulnerable things most of these animals were formally kept by street photographers who let people pose with them for money they're kept on drugs so they remain tranquil have their teeth pulled out so they can't hurt people and starved so they remain small this is the third go with me if we take circus bears who have finished their usual life it's not a secret that they could well be made into sausages many of the animals we receive we just can't say they've been treated as just a commodity. big cats like rameses lord arthur and homer here make up most of the parts residence there isn't the money to give them as much space as they would have in the wild but at least here they have some exercise a good diet and the veterinary care they so often need there is

a variety in the of the clerk workers try to do something to save the situation so do i will try to save the earth from the savagery of people so we are colleagues really. from plastic bottles to lion cubs saving the planet can come in many shapes and sizes here on the black sea coast they might be rubbish to some but not to everyone. tom bottom. all right a time now for the business news with your. own divided warm welcome to the business updates as russian court has handed well major b.p. a win in its legal battle with minority shareholders and its russian oil venture. the court rejected two claims for around sixteen billion dollars minority shareholders say they suffered financial losses by being excluded from

a strategic alliance between and b.p. to explore the arctic for oil that deal was blocked by russian part yes in team key b.p. on the grounds it breached their shareholders cream and the minority shareholders say they will appeal before object. brushes entry to the world trade organization would obligate the united states to establish normal trade relations with moscow barack obama has called for a cold war era provision which restricts american businessmen for working with certain countries to be abolished the jackson vatican amendment is suspended every year with russia but it still formally remains on this to to. basically us companies don't benefit from the expression of russia from the lower tariffs and the improved administrative procedures until the u.s. congress repeals ducks advantage so it creates a low interest for appealing jackson verdict in the us but it's a matter for congress not the administration so obama could promise it but i think

that do are very likely to see a repeal of jackson verdict following russia's deputy accession president richard vedder of says russia's economy is in a stable position compared to other g. twenty nations he made the statement while visiting the far eastern city of. the lushness that on the economic situation in our country looks better than in many european countries despite recent difficulties we have managed to achieve fairly rapid g.d.p. growth this year it will reach waterfall a half percent in europe and the us g.d.p. growth will range from zero to one percent this year we will also have the lowest inflation in the last twenty years around seven percent but i cannot say we are protected from danger we need to cut our dependence on fluctuations in commodity prices and develop the industrial sector. economy school for the. time to have a look at the market stocks were rising across europe tracking down gains on wall

street and in asia stocks in london the higher by banks royal bank of scotland group and lloyds banking are both three percent in the black some resource stocks are on the rise on high crude oil futures and precious metals on the downside energy kirby kirby and mine are reacting to their are shedding one point eight percent and one percent respectively. but here in moscow the markets have reversed from early gains and they are trading in the red the south they are just my it's except both losing under one percent here's a look at some of the individual share moves in the my six energy majors and banking stocks what well giant oil is dropping over two and a half percent b. is also over one percent in the red bucking the trend is pulling metal gaining momentum on high gold price. that's it for now you're up to date for more stories you can log on to our website r.t.e. dot com slash business.

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