rebranded return to the u.s. security contractor blackwater banned from iraq over allegations of killing civilians now plans to cash in on the country's uncertain future with a comeback but under a different name. the birthplace of libya's rebellion hits boiling point again as tens of thousands in benghazi protest against the new government and the secrecy surrounding its policies live reaction on that development shortly. a russian convoy carrying humanitarian aid to being stuck at the border for over twenty four hours after being stopped by the police in a move that moscow says is a clear sign of the e.u.

exceeding its authority in the region our top stories this hour. international news and comment live from moscow twenty four hours a day this is. u.s. troops prepare to leave iraq thousands of contractors a moving in to make a buck in the country devastated by war and one of them is the world's most infamous mercenary company blackwater the firm was once banned from iraq over allegations of indiscriminate shooting of civilians but now it's trying to wash away the bloody taint by branding itself it's now called academy. in baghdad. well companies construction companies a company that will. help the country rebuild all of those companies are going to need their own security as well and one of the companies that wants a piece of. a controversial name blackwater under

a different name now known as academy now blackwater expelled from the country in two thousand and seven has a bit dubious. questionable tactics especially after the massacre at square where seventeen civilians were killed after this incident the iraqi government suspended their business license to do business in the country of iraq after the tried to reinvent themselves and come back under the guise of x. services and now it looks like the company is trying to reinvent themselves again so that they can get a piece of this contracting pie now let me give you one example as to the types of contracts that this new academy company interested in. security cooperation is expected to have two hundred military personnel stay back to help train iraqi special forces and the iraqi military in addition to do two hundred military personnel there's seven hundred contractors civilian contractors are

expected to stay as well to have the rocky military academy wants a little bit of that pie it is expected but beyond that it is expected that all of these companies coming into the country as the u.s. pulls out they're going to need their own security services as well and academy wants to make sure that they get in on the ground floor as the u.s. troops leave of course interesting development information company blackwater trying to come back to iraq after having been expelled in two thousand and seven after questionable practices in baghdad sean thomas our team. u.s. based security and intelligence studies program has told me that he believes but what is most a full scale campaign to disassociate itself from its murky possed soley to take a share of the profitable market in iraq. what a cademy i guess as it's called now is trying to do is i guess blur its institutional lineage through

a series of corporate renaming since pretty standard tactic for a corporation another thing that is trying to do of course is disassociate itself from close connections to the cia at least in the corporate world so that other is known american clients may find it attractive iraq is a lucrative market for blackwater slash academy. it's going to be difficult particularly in iraq because of the american past of the organization in iraq the square massacre a constant cases of smuggling of weapons it's very unlikely they'll be accepted by the iraqi people but keep in mind that all of this rebranding will continue and there's so many ways to find ways to get back into the country as another company. with all eyes now on how iraq will fare on its own after u.s. forces pull out we look back at hell the war began richard perle one of the chief architects of the u.s. war shared with r.t. his views on the justifications and failings behind the invasion of iraq well that

interview is coming your way in about twenty minutes from now. instead of turning things over to the iraqis more or less immediately we got involved in an occupation and occupations are never popular. and the fact that we were an occupying power was very important in the development of the insurgency against the occupation. that interview coming away a little later here in r.t. to libya now on the streets of benghazi and once again the focal point for crowds of angry libyans only this time they are protesting against the country's new government for two days tens of thousands of protesters have been demanding more transparency and honesty from the national transitional council the demonstrators are infuriated by secrecy surrounding the country's decision making them finances the city of benghazi was where the nato backed rebellion began and ultimately ended

forty years of colonel gadhafi. well let's discuss this further with patrick hayes a reporter for the online magazine spiked joining us in london well this former gadhafi stronghold is now once again as we can see plagued by unrest do you think there is the potential for things to get really serious or or is it more likely to calm down when the elections are held as promised. well i think things could get serious certainly in the run up to that period and obviously it is always a question in this situation when the elections are going to be and exactly where whether or not the end going to really be as good as their word in this situation i think it's a very interesting development because the national transitional council was never actually really part of a democratically forged libya anyway though never on the streets really fighting for the with the libyan people against gadhafi a lot of them in fact were in other countries at the time waiting for my speech

helicoptered in when it was safe enough to enter tripoli what you had with the m.t.c. from the start and we've been talking about this for several months now was a transitional council which is made up of both to the extent we know how it's made up it was made up of gadhafi cronies people who were basically cherry picked by the west as being suitable people to represent the libyan people now we have the situation we've been saying on both russia today and on spike to iraq for all of this was likely to happen where the libyan people are saying hang on a minute these people don't represent us we don't even really know who they are we have this western orientated national transitional council who doesn't get represent the libyan people and understandably the libyan people are getting quite profitable if they fought for democracy a lot of the lost their lives for democracy and now affectively as the banners on the protest say you know we came this far to now be represented by food. so on

patrick it looks like the situation is very similar before gadhafi was toppled where the country is divided now and it was divided of course between east and west with the people in benghazi now running against the people in tripoli is this the way all revenues are to be distributed because that is certainly one area of concern that there of course causing bitterness among those protesters there in benghazi or is there really more to it than that and you have already mentioned the suspicions about the m.t.c. but anything that perhaps to do with tribal or clan divisions as well. i mean i think those divisions can sometimes be brought in to kind of muddy the waters a bit too much and i would rather not go down that route so i think ultimately when people fight and struggle for democracy they do come together as they were doing when gadhafi was. still in charge and that process of negotiation putting aside tribal differences those kind of divisions then you can often make too much of an

actually fight overthrow gadhafi and then think about how you would forge a new country were put on ice by the western intervention by western intervention you know in terms of the oil money i think you can understand why there are concerns with this because this complete lack of transparency and with the m.t.c. at the moment they were to say how many members there are of the council the websites that they have technically says there are thirty three members yet they said earlier on in november this year forty eight members voted for the new prime minister i mean there's a lot of confusion about what's going on in libya at the moment and the empty sea really aren't showing any true leadership or representing the interests of the libyan people you simply learning. just because we are running out of time he said a little earlier that there are doubts as to whether the n.t.s.c. will be good as a word you know actually question the fact that they will not be elections taking place only shortly so much now depends on those elections and many see that as the first step towards a new democratic future for libya is that not is not what's going to happen. you

know the first step towards a democratic future for libya what was the revolution which would've happened if it wasn't for the west getting involved i mean the democrats democracy can't just be handed from outside as it really has been done with the n t c that was basically a the west imposing a government it was satisfied with on the libyan people. basically what you've got a situation now. is people are taking to the street with various concerns peter oil money. transparency democratic accountability and saying hang on a minute we need to have these debates we need to have leaders that represent us now yes this may happen during the election process but a democratic process democracy is more than elections democracy is people going debating fighting fighting conflicting visions of the future and winning arguments of people who are winning people about how to run the country now the empty seat didn't win an argument with the libyan people about why they should run the country

they basically just the peace people in the west instead so yes the elections are very important you know i think they will be true to their word that they will take place but really what we're seeing now is a democratic process in action in many ways people taking to the streets and saying well i'm going to mean it who are you you know we think overthrow gadhafi in order to have a load of physics cronies who have basically just lackeys of the west take taking his role thanks very much indeed for your thoughts there on the developing situation there in benghazi in libya patrick kay's report of the online magazine spiked in london thank you. two months after the end of the civil war in libya changes are expected in almost all areas of life there but in one of the most important parts of the country's future education the wrist serious doubts about that change will be for the best given a record high literacy rate reached on the graphics roll some parents now oppose a total tearing up of the curriculum and the imposition of new values on that children. as this report. it's

a new day in the new libya but it starts with an all to reach students assembled before classes to see a new flag be hoisted and to sing a new national anthem. like the revolution the retry color of the human is a flashback to the pretty good afi era with a few verses tweaked to represent a notion of the country's recent liberation the decades on the get out the still even students were expected to see them arise long passages is very little of a question and it looks like this edition may continue i did you do dishes while this children to young to understand the meaning of life the city of the new relish their answer they're already expected to know it by heart next comes a speech dead an ambiguous lee explains who are the heroes of the new libya the

were all rebels to shout how to gain freedom they taught us to how the had high they taught us to love our country this is the only new material students in this school have learned since september regular classes like math or chemistry are suspended until january when the new curriculum is expected to be introduced misspent in the english will definitely introduce foreign languages into the curriculum now kids will start studying english from the first grade because they have to be prepared for university and. in the meantime the students are preoccupied with making drawings and trinkets to commemorate the february seventeenth revolution teachers here say they try their best to explain to students what has happened in libya over the past few months in this chemical that nobody tells us what to tell students who are free to say whatever we want we don't say bad things about gadhafi in fact we don't talk about him at all here as they say

sometimes that picture is worth a thousand words to get off the employees and carpet dug just a year ago adorned the principal's office is now strategically placed in front of the door several hundred copies of his green book from the local library have been thrown away the forty two years of his rule that how bring libya sleep just two raids from twenty six to about ninety percent is a distant memory i did it to sink but what she did of its was for but then it is a i mean you don't have a bunch of but what can i will but you dad doesn't move you to go over to but what you did in the past eight months is killing. murder out of four hundred fifty students that attended the school a year ago half are still absent some fled the country others were pulled out by their parents who disagree with the new values talk here those who laugh and run because traders have to speak i think it's better to caffeine are going

to. something bad about the good. while the study of english was banned under going after words like freedom and revolution a familiar to every first grader here but when asked what's the difference between gaddafi is due me here a year which literally means power of the masses only be a new democracy both students and teachers are lost i don't actually know that i was just that. it's in a boycott artsy. from the arab spring to occupy wall street the protests. has been making history throughout two thousand and eleven so it says america's time magazine has called over into streets all over the world even resulting in regime change in some places has been closely watching the unexpected recipients of this year's the person of the year on or on that's traveled through north africa and the middle east then the u.s. europe and even russia just click onto r.t. dot com where it will all become clear for you also on our websites. the return

of the king russia's martial arts legend. goes to japan to challenge one of its top fighters to find out what the man known as the last emperor is up against on r.t. dot com for. the e.u. is abusing its mandate in kosovo by holding a russian convoy carrying humanitarian aid to serbs in kosovo it is still stuck at a checkpoint in the border area after being stopped by e.u. controlled police. reports now for serbs in the country this delay will mean a critical shortage of vital supplies. a humanitarian mission turned international scandal more than two dozen russian trucks filled with food and household items

destined for serbia and kosovo was stopped on the border of the disputed territory by albanian officials members of ulick's a police mission operated by the e.u. the stop which was an entirely political decision. is blackmailing us according to the russian side looks official demanded an order for the aid to be let through the convoy needed to be a score to the serbian crossover albanian forces or it could end the concert in obeying inabilities the checkpoint. being asked to comply with these conditions were being forced to recognize institutions in the news or russia or serbia accept and which exceed the dui mandate. that are this is a new chapter in a crisis that has rocked kosovo since the summer the territory has been controlled by ethnic albanian since a bloody conflict in nineteen ninety nine the spire declaring independence in two thousand and eight kosovo is still hope to more than one hundred thousand serbs and

albanians tried to impose their border controls under so been part of the territory in july the serb minority put up barricades during their bond with serbia would be broken and a foreign authority would be imposed upon them since then there have been constant clashes broken up by temporary agreements for many serbs stopping the humanitarian mission as in others by of muscle flexing but albanian border officials while the trucks remain trapped on the border and the driver said the inside the situation wouldn't serve in kosovo continues to be grave this isn't a spice it from red cross says that nearly half of all serbs in kosovo need aid to survive. she misses this house regularly just sixteen people living inside it all refugees driven out of their homes in one thousand nine hundred nine now when you know where three sisters our. husbands go out every morning to do our jobs they're no parent and once for refugees some days they'll bring back five euros sometimes

nothing today we may have food on the table tomorrow maybe not it's not done to moscow prishtina and belgrade to deal with the political fallout meanwhile down on the ground the standoff is taking a tangible toll on the minority leader of artsy kosovo. we're going to continue to monitor the situation on the troubled border and you can follow his twitter updates to stay on top of that story and you can see that in one of his late tweets he reports that a second russian aid convoys on its way from remain at a cost of a with everyone wondering if this one will be enough to pass. dot com i should say r t underscore calm for.

the greek economy already teetering on the brink has taken another turn for the worse not the verdict coming from i.m.f. officials austerity inspectors visited the country to check whether it's meeting the conditions set up by international creditors if the demands aren't fulfilled greece went in the second lifeline of one hundred thirty billion euros another debt ridden euro zone economy italy is undergoing a further round of belt tightening as its lower house of parliament is about to vote for more austerity measures now you for a leader of the u.k. independence party says the hands of eurozone struggle is a time while they are trapped within the bloc. don't forget that politicians will always defend the status quo they will always tell you that if what we have now doesn't continue to exist the sky will fall in there'll be famine pestilence

a little over a complete disaster we've seen this before many times over the years the reality is that the breakdown of the euro in the short would be tough because many many european banks would go bust and probably have to be nationalized but as we've seen with iceland who back. in two thousand and eight let some of their banks go bust accepted the situation three years are they going back to growth i think the biggest threat we face now in europe is to keep countries like greece and portugal and ireland and possibly even spain and italy to trapped inside an economic prison stripped of their democracy i mean literally the governments of greece and italy were removed by these bully boys in brussels the bigger threat is they stay inside this thing and they die a slow economic death and they finish up with unemployment figures that are so high that there is even a risk that europe returns to extremism and maybe even fascism so let's get the bad

news out of the way let's have the break and you know what a few months of the world see very it will seem very much rosier nigel farage than all of these cross talk show is taking on the organizations whose decisions trigger roller coaster rides on the markets peter pan and he gets a rating the rating agencies and that's coming up a little later today here on r.t. . one of the issues one of the problems with trying to make the ratings better through issuing having fines or having a system of penalties is that people like richard just say well we should just get rid of ratings altogether because they're obviously conflicted and stupid let's get rid of them but you know what they're just plays in that place is not only really agencies in a sense because we don't get stronger i married. his themselves because you have these voices saying let's get rid of richard well that's mischaracterizing my position a little because i didn't say let's get rid of ratings of course we need ratings i

said let's get you know let's not tinker with a system that's so broken in terms of its incentives. crosstalk a little later today here on the morris chair talk one of the greatest space pioneers in history has passed away at his home in moscow two months short of his one hundredth birthday born in one nine hundred twelve he was an innovator at the cutting edge of rocket science along with his mentor. he was behind almost every major soviet space launch particularly masterminded the world's first cosmic outpost the mir space station you're a correction from the russian academy of cosmos six says that talk has already become a legend long before he passed away. he was born in the right place and. he took a full advantage to it he was. created to what he was doing.

and he was a blessed the rural career. he was special for space. above all remember two things first he was one of the major contributors to the design. and he will also be remembered for writing. a revolutionary book called people which could be called a need as a generation. and the russian cosmonaut ics. greene is here with the business he's very shortly but first let's have a look at what else is making news around the world in our world update tributes to the victims of tuesday's deadly gun and grenade attack in belgium with many people laying flowers at the site of a makeshift memorial meanwhile police have found the body of a female house cleaner in a shed belonging to a money who killed five hundred twenty at a busy market the gunman who died during his rampage reportedly killed

a woman before carrying out his brutal assault. egypt is holding the second round of its first post revolution parliamentary election of one thousand million citizens are eligible to cast their votes with the muslim brotherhood expecting to repeat its first round of success where it crushed its more liberal rivals the parties hoping to dominate the first elected government after hosni mubarak's thirty year rule ended in february results will be finalized until after a third round general. i'll be back with a recap of our top stories for in just a few minutes from now before then as promised kareen is here with your business news. thank you bill welcome to business the sour angle russian venture tank a b.p. says it's going to vest ten billion dollars in arctic oil production this will include infrastructure all the oil fields and links to the export pipelines mainly to china the move follows the failed arctic alliance between b.p.

and rosneft which was blocked by the russian partners in cavan. and gas from says the south stream pipeline to three russian gas to europe will have its terminal point in italy earlier the state energy giant also its central european location and gas infrastructure was seen as an advantage but vienna backs rival pipeline project in a book call causing gust front to switch to italy but even in our capital says this also makes better commercial sense. the gum to which is provided for the guest wipes enjoy a certain. a bit of development maybe some future discounts maybe some privileges so it's obviously it's a mutual it's a win win situation it's a good commerce and i think the italy in the way you've found itself right now. may be offering guess brome a bit rates. let's have a look at the markets now all is quiet heavily down that seems to be on worries

over falling demand particularly in europe opec has also been holding meetings the organization has agreed to maintain production of thirty million barrels a day however no mechanism was agreed to cut supply demand should fall further. now as close over to the year u.s. where stocks are lower this hour markets extend losses into a third day as at least borrowing costs rose to a record after an auction of five years debt also if you will broken eleven months lows against the dollar stocks in europe for shopping on wednesday and the euro dropped below one dollar thirty cents markets are lower on worries over europe sovereign debt crisis combined with lingering disappointment over policy inaction by the us bubble reserve germany's dax has dropped point eight percent at the foot sea as well a metro among the main news has fallen three and a half percent on the decks and here in russia markets and lower the r.t.s.

lost one point two percent demise it's closed nearly half a percent in the red let's have a look at some individual shavelson why sex all the downturn energy and banking stocks meeting the bank lost over half a percent at the close russia's second largest lender plans to cut its following next year by fifty percent as niels climb versus other developing countries oil company tech nafta and slower as well that's despite the company's net profit rising fifty percent in the first five months of the year and financial group of cases jama has revised from early again. since finishing lower the company reported third quarter net profit rose seventy five percent to three hundred nineteen. well foreign visitors to russia will soon be able to claim back value added tax on goods brought here when they leave the country purchase tax is currently fifteen percent over only goods costing more than three hundred fifteen dollars will be subject to a refund this is the rule applied to quote shoes electronics souvenirs and food two

hundred retailers are expected to join the scheme which will start in the first of next year that is for this hour back about fifty five minutes for with more financial news here on our.