international news and comment live from moscow this is r.t. with twenty four hours a day italy has lashed its perceived lethargic bureaucracy into action as it seeks to rush a critical austerity package through both houses of parliament the nation's president has promised once the law is passed pm silvio berlusconi will resign with his possible successor being a former e.u. commissioner when i correspond sara firth is in rome with more from there. a lot of the people a lot of the m.p.'s we've been speaking to the last couple of days they want to send a very clear message to the markets to the international community that they can take decisive action now at a very critical moment in its latest three now we saw that very possibly some of these lead today a hundred and fifty six days to twelve and it's expected tomorrow that similar things going to happen in the a final approval will be given in the lower house and not of course with them pave

the way for the prime minister berlusconi to step aside as he vowed to do once a reforms had been passed and at that point his thought that the italian president will try to appoint a new hairs and some sort of technocratic government will be formed going to happen very quickly from what we've been hearing is that the emphasis really head now is on decisive action and the front runner that's emerged recently is a man named mary muncie he's the former. and he says they favor not just among politicians here but among theories and he does it while he's got very close links with brussels he's thought to be the man he can lead the way three this crisis situation is lead now finds itself in by no means is the new government going to be a quick fix to all the problems that it is essential at this moment the sum for the faction is taken to stand a strong message next week to try and stem a lot of that uncertainty and mistrust and the political guidance here in the country that we've seen from the markets and from the international community and

as you said mary monti is a favorite we saw the italian president making quite a clever chesney when he appointed him istana to the life another has made him a much more appealing candidate the m.p.'s much more politically viable to take the top spot and we've also seen the top spot in greece taken by former e.c.b. official you've now got married monti possibly gehring up to take the top spot he said for me e.u. commissioner there is definitely concern amongst the public in these countries that what you're saying. as an extension of processing the since issue really that is what's happening again the m.p.'s that we're speaking to is saying that this technocratic government now is really good it just pushing through these harsh measures just getting them off the ground because they've been long promised and have failed to materialize and that's really what's needed to be stay now from the years and leaders and of course it's labor the entire us and future right now looking extremely uncertain but the public very concerned about the loss of red

a say about whether the new governments are going to be acting in their country's interest here in italy we still got those very harsh reforms that not only have to be passed but they don't have to be influenced say is one thing to put in place this year across here going to a piece brussels at the quite another to gain up public support and we've seen in the past in both italy and countries like greece the a loss of public to pull can really have a very significant impact in d.c. by no means it's lee getting to be out of the words if and when that new government is formed it's expected to happen as early as saturday not out of the woods yet there's still a long way to get the funds as a very critical point in the feature and there's a lot that needs to be done we've been taking a closer look at these economy. the italian brand has always seemed to be going strong. the line divest business press is. it in fashion is

a country that economy wise it's nice to pitting is best it caught the recently at least in its economy stagnating has now become the latest country to be dragged into the center of the eurozone crisis. italy has a strong economy and could have. been far better than it is now italy could now face a similar fate these countries having to seek emergency parallels 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 might not be greece but with a mammoth that soaring boring costs just how did italy and in this situation right now nobody is spending 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

here is in demands to achieve that three tough reforms has been a large part of was made with beating 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 of leadership that was not credible outside and very divisive inside i don't think it's only an italian problem i mean there's quite some support for saying that mr berlusconi was not able to deliver what he promised i think there might be a transfer some of your of with. him but that's not going to be enough. we need support from europe otherwise everybody on its own and that's the scariest part with the situation in italy right now the u.s. is saying faces 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 say deals could be in ruins.

the new greek prime minister lucas papademos has been sworn in as the head of a unity government the makeup of his new cabinet was also announced on state television after the service. the former banker and european central bank vice president's immediate task will be to implement yet more austerity measures in return for continued e.u. bailout payments must have a valve to do all he can to bring greece's finances under control and promise to keep the country in the euro zone and john laughlin the director of studies at the paris institute of democracy and cooperation believes brussels has escaped much of the blame for the blocs debt crisis. these people who have taken power in greece and surely to take power in italy have never been elected these are men who made their entire careers through garnering important appointment in cases like the european commission or the european central bank they have no democratic mandate at all and precisely what is so frightening about what is happening not that it has

the european union and the euro enters its death agonies because that's what i think it is is the way in which the european union really is showing and i say this without any exaggeration it's true nature as a dictatorship after all it is europe which has effectively commanded these two prime ministers to leave office and drew had to leave office the moment he suggested a referendum on the debt package and berlusconi had to leave office the moment he said that italians would become poorer under the euro so we're seeing really a very ugly development now in europe of course the governments are responsible for the crisis but there is a code responsible element and that is the euro itself they only need bailouts from the european union because they don't have the option of devaluation they don't have the option of managing their own economic and monetary affairs i'm absolutely convinced that the euro project is at an end i can't say when it's going to break down but it is at an end yes there's been financial irresponsibility in greece

initially but the situation has been made worse well catastrophic by their membership of the euro zone locked in their r.t. live here in moscow within twenty four hours a day still ahead this hour. armed to the teeth syrian authorities ringing the alarm bells over an increased amount of weapons being smuggled into the country to boost extremist factions fighting the regime. and we delve deeper into the causes of a vicious circle in ukraine where political protests and brawls are a daily reality no matter who holds the reins of power. stories to overcome the. first nato may have finished its bombing mission in libya but now there's a full scale western invasion energy corporations are queuing up to do business with the new government which is rewarding the military victory with lucrative oil and gas contracts in artie's laura smith looks at how the harvest of war is being reached. first british bombs tourists apart now british

companies will get paid to put it back together libya is open for business and you k. firms are being encouraged to join the gold rush is a relatively wealthy country with oil reserves and i expect that there will be opportunities for british. companies to get involved in the reconstruction of libya 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 libya in areas ranging from electricity and water supplies to health care and education could amount to put some three hundred billion dollars over the next ten years and the british government will make sure it takes

a 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. we destroy. journalist john pilger says there was evidence of battering before nato even got involved actually a transitional council told the french way. they were given over to be fired. for being really. the u.k. department for trade and investment already has star on the ground in libya ready to welcome british companies. awarded contracts wanting to get in on the action or

shell and b.p. shares rose on the news they were talking to the transitional government and generic firms and mark macdonald also reportedly keen but the latter refused to put up a spokesman when asked preferring instead to send basic statements which critics say is a new tactic to avoid defending their ethics it's better than the half of them involved in any form of public discussion of why that was around the world. 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 r.t. london. russia is calling on the syrian opposition to stop aligning itself with extremist gangs which are smuggling weapons into the country only triggering more

violence this comes amid an increase in illegal shipments of arms ammunition and military supplies from neighboring lebanon over the last few months one of the scots the dangerous this may pose i'm joined live by middle east expert the fish i'm guessing thank you very much indeed for being with us martin a syrian authorities say the country is being flooded with weapons from outside and we just heard that some of them are coming indeed from lebanon so who's organizing this and where else could they be coming from. well first of all i'm not surprised because the syrian authorities have been saying that right from the start from the start of the conflict at the time nobody believed them or at any rate they thought they were exaggerating now we know that the mass media was actually exaggerating and even distorting the facts so that is an attack and an organized attack on syria there's no doubt in my mind now i had my doubts in the past few months but now i'm absolutely sure that syria is being targeted by. what i call an

unholy alliance now that reminds me what is happening in syria reminds me of what happened in nicaragua. twenty years ago when the contras were organized by the americans in order to. attack and the nicaraguan at the time they sounded. similar things seems to be happening in syria now so i'm not saying that there is not anyway an element of this being a genuine uprising by the people you're saying this is a revolution being fueled by external sources. well it's not that i believe in my opinion now that in libya not in syria we're not witnessing evolution as a matter of fact we are witnessing a conflict now we have to understand the nature of this conflict i don't believe it said evolution we saw a genuine revolution in tunisia in egypt and to

a certain extent in yemen and perhaps in behind but not in libya and syria now this is a geo political conflict it's perhaps it started as an internal conflict within syria itself but it soon degenerated into a socio or not the sort of. geo political conflict with geo political aims and there is an unholy alliance between certain western powers on the one hand certain gulf states turkey and fundamentalist. groups attacking the syrian regime not for democratic purposes but for geo political purposes that's what i. in this situation but one of the concerns of course is the amount of weapons that reach in the hands of those who are opposing the government but surely the same happened in libya you said there were many similarities but the civilian people there arming themselves in order to protect themselves from being attacked by gadhafi forces isn't it a similar situation here that we're seeing in syria well well i don't think that

gadhafi has actually toppled by the people and i think if he was toppled by nato nato power was responsible for toppling. the gadhafi regime and for killing him as well so. the people on the ground were not the crucial factor in destroying the gadhafi regime now in syria we know that the majority of the people are not actually there they're not part of this uprising if you want to call it uprising we saw millions of people going into the streets of damascus and aleppo supporting the regime now these couldn't have been organized. i think they spontaneously. acted not because they love their vision but because they know that the alternative would be a disaster for syria as happened in iraq and in libya so the syrian people are a very highly cultured people and they know their interests you know they don't they don't need the americans or the french to tell them what their interests are

but it's. about the position of the arab league the arab league has called on the assad regime to stop turning its weapons against the people the international community and i include the arab league now of course are putting pressure on the assad regime not on both sides of the conflict why do you think we're there forcing not only the arab league but other countries putting that pressure on assad and not seeing the situation in the way that you dick. well i think because they are part of the let me call it a conspiracy against syria the arab league in particular they have a very poor record when it comes to. attitudes to. countries who oppose the u.s. in particular take iraq for example they played their role in the strong iraq they played their role in destroying libya and now they're trying to play out all. destroying syria and the syrian regime and the syrian state itself. and of course the syrian situation is different from the libya in that at least you have here the

support the full support of russia and china which is very commendable and that is an important factor in making the situation look at bit different or not a bit much different in syria and that's why we have hopes that the syrian regime would be able to actually to combat or at least to stand before this storm but i think that the syrian regime should accelerate their reform process and. procedures otherwise it would be in a weak position and those drugs are of course exactly one russia has been calling for so it's very interesting very interesting to hear your point of view dr hisham kassem thank you for joining us live there from the actual thank you. the u.n. security council is reviewing palestine's bid for u.n. membership in new york the motion was filed in september too much euphoria in the west bank in the deciding vote may come as soon as next week. weighs up palestine's

chances. 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 right 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 there 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 my 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 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 the 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 bid 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 unesco admission to

the palestinians in need. the following that the united states canada and israel withdrew or stopped 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. reporting that the former ukrainian prime minister yulia timoshenko faces new criminal charges this time of tax of audience it 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 will signing gas contracts with russia in two thousand and nine many countries condemn the case against a machine because saying it was politicized. report it seems that in ukraine

history is 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 the headlines the world's media had been having many sleepless nights reporting on the rollercoaster events in the country back then writer and journalist meet 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 for society but if you do so you have to raise the do see every year it's fun to watch when the temperature rises in politics but for society it's bad but there's a limit to all this wildness after which society goes mad with you should we surely reach this goal which. many now say it was the message of you should get scared and

see which helps which sweep to power and many felt his arrival would become a breath of fresh air centralizing the power instead of the economy were victoria look at his first priority when he became president of ukraine for more than a year it had been relatively quiet here but the case of former prime minister yulia timoshenko fourteen months into yellow which is a 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. hi bars. i want to point out that the one thousand nine hundred thirty seven has returned to ukraine with this verdict and the repression of the people we all have to be strong today i am appealing to all the people of goodwill to all the patriots of ukraine defend ukraine from the all for a tarion regime from the lack of liberty is from the lies and injustice. while the

so-called joy of arc of ukrainian politics was stime travelling inside the courtroom her seething 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 profit attacking the police with blunt weapons growing social unrest scared the country's president. who are in force and agencies tell me that people are buying firearms and that they are planning attacks on state bodies nationwide people have completely lost their shine conspiracy theories and public protests of late have created enough 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 of human cognition power was to come because people expected

a better life after the wild years you should just cadency was filled with madness but at least that regime was open and predictable but 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 but with the euro two thousand and twelve football championship and a crucial parliamentary election looming the temperature of scandal will most certainly be rising again come next year. r.t. reporting from kiev in ukraine to up to twenty six minutes past the hour here in moscow the business news is next with union i'll be back with a look at the headlines shortly stay with him. hello and a very warm welcome to the business update russia's entry to the world trade organization would obligate the united states to establish normal trade relations with moscow barack obama has called for a called war era provision which restricts american businessmen from working with

certain countries to be abolished the jackson family commandment is suspended every year with russia but is still formal remains on the statutes basically u.s. companies don't benefit from the expression of russia from the lower tariffs and the improved administrative procedures until the u.s. congress repeals tax advantage creates a law be an interest for appealing jackson verdict in the us but it's a matter for congress not the administration so obama can't promise it but i think that do are very likely to see a repeal of tax and violent following russia's deputy accession and president dmitry medvedev 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. economic situation in our country looks better than in many european countries disappoint recent difficulties we have managed to achieve fairly rapid g.d.p.

growth this year it will reach full to four hundred percent while in europe and the us g.d.p. growth zero to one percent this year we will also have the lowest inflation in the last twenty years of 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. let's take a look at how the markets are performing stocks were railing across europe on friday after the italian said it approved an austerity package raising optimism that the euro area second most indebted country will contain the debt crisis but here in moscow the markets were mixed at the closing with a lack of confidence the european debt crisis is being resolved the r.t.s. was flat to positive and the myself was point three percent here's a look at some of the individual share moves in the market six energy majors and banking stocks swallow a giant liquid dropped on speculation it fails to find oil or gas of ghana finished

lower or one percent was gold also saw losses despite hope higher gold prices. a russian court has handed oil major b.p. away and its legal battle with minority shareholders in its russian oil venture t m k b.p. the court rejected two claims for around sixteen billion dollars minority shareholders say they suffered financial losses by being excluded from the strategic alliance between ross neff and b.p. to explore the arctic for oil that deal was blocked by b.p. as russian partners untamed b.p. on the grounds it breached their shareholders agreement the minority shareholders say they will appeal the four object. that's it for now you're up to date for more stories log on to our website our two dot com slash business.

discovery. communicate with the want to. test yourself and become free. see what nature can give you.

if you just join us for a while. top stories this hour the italian senate approves its harshest new austerity law yet hoping to stem a growing consensus of the eurozone third largest economy is falling to the ravages of the euro crisis. palestine is expected to push for a vote. even if it loses it wants the components to justify their decision which it believes will be dictated by the us. and western corporations to send oil rich libya seeking to exploit the riches left following nato's bombing mission. and i'll be back with more news stories more developments in the. in the meantime we report on the claims that major pharmaceutical manufacturers who make cancer fighting drugs are also thought to be responsible for producing over the.