this i think that would have to be one of the factors but i think it's quite remarkable to think that france and the us and other countries would be willing to step up sanctions that have already had such a profound effect on the iranian people on the basis of their hunch that erodes iran is developing nuclear weapons as as france has basically put it it's quite remarkable because that really does is tantamount to an act of war and and really the i think the only logical outcome for this is another increase in military tensions between the countries involved in that region that are already on the knife edge of military tension so it is quite an explosive thing to be talking about increased sanctions against a country that's already pretty much got its back to the to the wall when it comes to the absolute embargo of the country in so many ways that sending its own currency into a spiral so i don't really see how this is meant to help the situation any in any way but will only probably late likely increase the chance of some sort of military confrontation well western countries have always

a voice especially as that iran's nuclear program isn't peaceful do you think that there's an underlying reason for the timing of the tensions rising now. there must be a number of things to this and i think the escalation in recent weeks with the recent ten day military drill in the in the straits of hormuz has to be weighing heavily on the minds of of the us and others but but i think really the the idea that iran would really close off the straits of hormuz or attempt to do so would only be an absolute last measure resort for a country that relies on the importation of refined gasoline and other things through the very straits that they would be sensibly sabotaging and planting mines in so it's it's quite remarkable to think that that iran would do that in any other situation other than they felt that the entire existence of their country was under threat so so again i don't think it's a really credible threat unless they believe that the military tensions are are going to boil over and in turn into some sort of confrontation and again that

that's really due to these crippling sanctions that have been placed so adding more sanctions to to the mix is is really just a recipe for military disaster i think or rather said today that it is ready to return to the negotiation table and discuss its nuclear program yet the e.u. is reluctant to do so are talks something that the west should be looking for here . i don't know what else the west should be looking for if they were truly concerned about nuclear weapons and somehow have the moral authority and international jurisdictions to tell tell other countries what they can and can't do with nuclear technology but but even considering that the only possible outcome that they should be looking for in this situation would be for their talks to do anything else would be to me to be backing iran again into that corner in order to to increase military tensions and it has to be kept in mind here that when these military tensions are increased in a place like the straits of hormuz which is just such

a small area that that not only can can mistakes happen and mistakes occur that will be mistaken for military hostile acts that could then be used to springboard into further confrontation but also it has to be remembered that in july of two thousand and eight it was revealed by seymour hersh that dick cheney had actually planned on dressing up four to five u.s. boats as a rainy and p.t. boats to in order to attack american vessels and blame it on the iranians in order for a pretext for war that was a real in july of two thousand and eight so we have to understand that when these military tensions are increased to this point where anything can send them over the edge then we could be seeing some sort of any sort of provocation being used as a justification for military confrontation in the region which i don't think any of the citizenry of either ran or the u.s. or france or any other country really wants at this point some might argue that iran's naval exercises were just an old fashioned display of military strength

rather than one of nuclear russia's military has said iran is incapable of creating a strategic missile so it is around really the threat it's being portrayed as. i think iran would like to portray itself as strong on the international stage and i think other people in the region who who are interested in their security would also like to. other countries don't understand that that iran will be the same type of military confrontation that the save the us face in iraq it's going to be quite a different type of confrontation but i think really when we talk about military confrontation in iran we have to start thinking about iran's strategic allies in the area and the possibility of a much larger war that would draw in oil and it's from from all over the region really and start something much much bigger than simply in iran a surgical strike or whatever might be hoped for in such a situation by the people who are planning such military intervention so so i think it's important to understand that it's not just the iranian military that would

likely be involved here and we'd be looking at a much wider regional war thank you very much james corbett editor of the corvette report website. here with r t coming your way in the program all right just like. a quiet german town becomes a battlefield between neo nazis and those prepared to stand up to them the full story just ahead. jordan is set to host the first bilateral meeting between israeli and palestinian negotiators in more than a year it's considered a last ditch attempt to revive direct peace talks aimed at creating an independent palestinian state let's now get the latest details from artie's paula slayer in tel aviv what can we actually expect from this initial meeting. well both sides have played down any kind of expectation that there will be a breakthrough in these talks saying that these will not lead to direct negotiations and should not be confused to be done in direct negotiations

themselves jordanian diplomat said that these talks will not solve anything although they do bring a new energy to the table the israeli defense minister who put it this way he said that these are negotiations about negotiations now the last time that israelis and palestinians sat down around the negotiating table was more than a year ago this time around they will be representatives from both israelis and palestinians they will be representatives from the quartet as well as the jordanian foreign minister they will be discussing the stalled middle east peace process and they will be looking again at the positions of both sides and the major issues that they will be trying to address issues of border security now the chief palestinian negotiator has called on israel to stop with that settlement building to release all palestinian prisoners and to recommit itself to a palestinian state within one hundred sixty seven borders he says that if israel does this it will show a commitment on the israeli side to restart peace talks but what are the main

stumbling blocks in the way of resuming these direct peace talks. well one of the main stumbling blocks of these talks is the whole issue of reconciliation between rival palestinian faction groups hamas and fatah there have been ongoing talks between these groups for some time now to establish some kind of unity government the next round of talks will be on the second of february in cairo now hamas has heavily criticized for holding these talks with the israelis it has called on fattah to boycott them it has said that they are merely repeating a policy of failure these ladies for bayside have said that they cannot be any real discussion of peace talks until the palestinian militants stop firing rockets into israel just last week there were several palestinians who were killed when israel launched a series of strikes on gaza the israeli said that those were in response to palestinian

militants firing into southern israel these raids also concerned that any kind of negotiations that they reach with will not be it here to buy from us until there is a reconciliation deal in place between these two palestinian groups the other stumbling block is of course the whole issue of settlements and he had be on yahoo government has shown that it is continuing to build settlements despite the international criticism these radius of say that they can be no preconditions for peace talks what most people are hoping for is that both sides will come to the party and will really just put forward where they stand and what that the paid to do but it is worth mentioning that the mood is really not that upbeat and most people don't really expect anything significant to come out of these talks parties paula slayer live from tel aviv thank you paul. we're always interested in your opinion and today those jordanian mideast peace talks are the subject of our latest online poll head to our web site r.t. dot com to take part right now half of you say it will be

a futile attempt to bring israel and palestine together the second highest number of voters think it will end up a major diplomatic disaster and a minority claim it will actually become a first step towards new reports like previous ones agree that camp david go online to cast your vote and while you're there check out these stories we're covering for you on our web site. turkey sounds up a new ally in the sky find out about the satellite which could give the rest of the world close up images of israel for the very first time also online. pandemonium check out this footage of a panda cub settling into its new home in the tiny zoo just one of the videos we have at our you tube channel. egyptians are voting in the third round of their first post revolution parliamentary election the country's leading islamised party is expected to dominate in the polls system with results expected in ten days the vote will see

a transition of power from the army which has been in charge since the toppling of president mubarak in february last year mubarak in the meantime is on trial charged with complicity in the killing of more than eight hundred protesters during february's properly or uprising last month the previous round of voting was overshadowed by violent clashes between protesters and the army and government raids on charitable organizations last week have also added to the bad feeling as you do you negotiate reports from cairo discontent is running high. the revolution may have toppled hosni mubarak the manager queues of corruption and suffocating freedom but no it's the ruling supreme council of armed forces which finds itself in hot water with the west fully human rights organizations. last week i feel this is a very dangerous situation because you have to. produce. but the people on the streets pushing for change secularists who have links with these groups so that the big

tension really between washington and kyra. left up cell phones and more than twenty boxes of documents were reportedly seized during raids by the police authorities promised all will be returned yet several questions remain what prompted the raids and what could possibly be so suspicious about energy all of the races in post-revolutionary egypt. and the members of the arabic center for an independent judiciary never did get an official explanation for the confiscation of their documents or the eviction from their office that followed. we don't know what they were searching for we told them we could give them anything they wanted but they came in search of everything and didn't give a simple answer whether they wanted bank statements or anything else from the camp sitting on a sidewalk by their former office the victim to ngo workers point out a certain irony this never happened when mubarak was in charge he says i will

surprise. you the police but the. ticket system. can't take a position. against so he moderates the activity of the human race would be. a see. this is a. human rights activists in egypt believe the razor are attempts to punish them for accusing military rulers of failing to carry through democratic reforms but western observers say the authorities are becoming increasingly wary of the ever watchful eye from washington and the true purpose of raids is to prove foreign funding over again is ations which authorities accused of destabilizing egypt seems to be a strong. and of opinion inside the military inside the state machine that. is very disillusioned with the old friendship with the west may be trying to find evidence

to prove that some of the trouble on the street some of the troubling times has been in some way fostered by these n.g.o.s washington tirelessly repeats the old adagio of the importance of its relations with egypt as a key player in the middle east but blight talk may hide a very different agenda washington doesn't want stabilization they want to be permanent are needed so that they can you know use that as a lever in the entire region egyptian activists aren't too happy with western help which they say can do more harm than good. i mean i don't like the way foreign countries put pressure on egyptian authorities that the pressure has to come from the egyptians and we as a human rights organization should provide it all of them up in my mother knew from us whatever the real reasons for the reins of n.g.o.s offices the increasing internal strife in the country could portend a shipwreck not just for egypt's relations with the west but for the country's revolution in cairo. r.t.

coming up ahead in the program of the secret of my success. in america we don't have that chance anymore because the land. it's very expensive to begin farming here we have a chance to take as much land is needed because if not you visit a dairy farm run by x. parents who made the move to russia and milks of the country is potential to the fullest. russia is speeding up the reforming and modernization of its armed forces the military hasn't been a top priority since soviet times but the crowd was now eager to set that right and as artie's tom barton reports change is long overdue. the russian armed forces the pride of the nation or are they the russian forces certainly falling behind and have fallen behind some of the larger arrivals new equipment is a priority there's also a dire need for reforms in organization recruitment training pay and military

doctrine the government has promised six hundred forty billion dollars over the next ten years to buy new weapons but russian arms manufacturers are no longer what they used to be me she just army now is in need of contemporary modern equipment and if the russian defense industry can't yet provide us with what we need will buy into broad new purchases include this london ship the mistral brought from france lorries from italy and flying drones from israel drones or through to the tickler problem the defense ministry dismayed by the russian company tasked with designing and building them. i asked them what was their problem and what prevented them from producing good vehicles the enterprise their bosses found plenty of excuses such as the absence of engines gliders exacta and i now know how much money they received and i saw the rubbish they produced not all new russian made weapons are falling

below standard the su thirty four fighter bomber is widely considered an exceptional aircraft but so few have been delivered that the older models they were to replace are starting to fail although russian designers come up with some excellent hardware for instance in terms of fighter and combat aircraft some time the industry has trouble in maintaining these at a high level and actually producing about the kind of numbers of the armed forces needed and the reform still have angry opponents to both in and outside the armed forces many of them argue that the we are meant is going just fine and that buying foreign weapons undermines russia's military. because we are becoming dependent on foreign suppliers of spare parts for military equipment on foreign military personnel training on foreign supplies from specific fuels and lubricants and other substances needed for the new equipment norms. in two thousand and eight russian

forces pushed the georgian army out of some of the cities in just five days but experts were dismayed at how outdated clumsy the russian army looked when faced with real positioning it reinforced the need for serious change the money being thrown at the problem is vast regiments of rubles on the road onto enough most to the defense ministry no no before the armed forces are ready for more than conflict a very long and very demanding war for reform must be warm here in the corridors of government and in factories around russia. r.t. moscow news just into former libyan rebel groups have reportedly been involved in intense gun battles in the center of tripoli the fighting involved machine guns rocket propelled grenades and aircraft guns it was not immediately clear why the two groups clashed and there is no immediate word on casualties we'll bring you more on this as we get it some other world news in brief for you this hour and

first to afghanistan where a suicide blast has killed five and wounded more than a dozen all there as the attack happened when a motorbike bomb bird detonated his explosives at a police checkpoint in the city of. among those killed were four civilians and a police officer several others including many children were also hurt officials say there was no clear target for the attack but it may have been aimed at a nearby police vehicle. the arab league has called an emergency meeting to discuss whether to withdraw its observers from syria there is concern over reports that security forces are still killing anti-government protesters despite the monitors presence and the most recent wave of trouble a gas pipeline exploded in homes province which the government has blamed on terrorists as is the fourth explosion to hit a gas pipeline since the syrian uprising began last march. despite a dark past with fascism like many other european countries germany is seeing

a surge in support for me or nazi groups that's a problem that sometimes divides whole towns between those in favor of extremism and those trying to make a stand you're going to school of investigates what's driving young people down a violent path. a quiet down disturbed. a small community divided. it began with the appearance of nazi symbols then the local social center was burned to the ground your. office was also vandalized says for him the final straw was when your nazis marched through the town's main square. i used to be afraid but it helps not to act alone to have supporters i became a public person with our initiative and it sort of my protection the end the initiative is actively supported by around fifty locals many are retired and armed

with posters they stand up to those who are often much younger and looking not too friendly like this young man who openly calls himself a neo nazi and admits encouraging a teenager to set the social center on fire he now faces up to two years behind bars in this new book but we won't let me go now sees rule here yet to not all locals agree the initiative is often criticized the neo nazi party even being three percent of bullets at the most recent poll in the election it. seems that it split our town some say we're exaggerating and are only making things worse by attracting too much attention but i think they're simply afraid. activists say it's easy for new nazis to recruit new members especially among disillusioned and dejected teenagers with poor infrastructure and high unemployment and few social schemes which the town can offer it's often simply boredom driving them to extremes where

the population of just around six thousand people sausan is a typical small german town far away from large industries and financial centers life here is called peaceful or at least it used to be before two thousand and nine mr van. and the other activists are not going to back down until life returns back to normal but unfortunately the problem with neo nazis in germany exists on a much wider scale thousands of new gather for a new marches in dresden often clashing with police and activists and german authorities caught two suspects believed to be members of the terrorists keep them for use in killing at least ten foreigners but. it's money struggles which are igniting the trouble of course economic. causes. conflicts and families. solved we have

a kind of rage but now the rage was you know escalated racist education germany's spending billions to call the eurozone crisis but ignoring economic trouble at home could be. unchecked it may be too long before disenfranchised youth ranks the entire country toward some of the biggest mistakes of this past. or to germany now we continue with our new series of reports on foreigners who have ventured to russia and achieved huge successes here. today we catch up with the british farmer who moved to russia fifteen years ago to milk the country's potential now owns one of the country's most profitable dairy farms. when we went on these lines people hadn't worked on the paternity as we had

photos growing today these lines are now working we have a whale of a four thousand and eight does this year ten twelve years ago the people applying approval for milk and even as a rule we started our project we thought we could make money out of that we talked to various parties a place it was a good idea the mill market will be there and we went ahead. the first problem we encountered and i think the normal was that the work as expected that they'd lost by by mr starr didn't know john had arrived in the first year that we were here we were changing ninety percent of the start of the month we couldn't find anybody that we thought could manage such a modern farm so in the end we decided that to cover our risk we would look overseas and i interviewed many people and in the end we have a young american now running the farm he's been with us of six years with his family we should look at the manure more what do you think it's good it's nice how

nice color. are the easiest thing to manage it's people that cause the problem probably number one problem i saw with people was they never had to take on responsibility for themselves now we've kind of. made this a team effort here where people have personal responsibility and. we go as far as to tell them each day what they have to do and what has to be faced and certain forms to fill out so that we can see they did their job either you love money or you love russia without that you can't work it because the frustrations of the bureaucracy is the main thing there are just too many laws every day you just finding new ones in a farm in a western husband and wife and an accountant an external accountant could run the farm here i've got fourteen people in the office it really is the sense that in order for you to get a desired it's a very long road in the west it's faster we need to do some treatment we. typically hear on a russian farm there's someone that's your boss. and someone's boss is someone

else's boss here we don't have that it's me i'm the boss of the farm and then we have workers that's it there's no middle management where. it was much harder ten years ago we had to go running around. in these ten years the market has evolved we've got investments now we've got. we've got. one from germany we've got company and we've got pepsi if you work here properly you've got big plans you can do big problems i'm just really efficiency of scale because lannes more efficiency that's the real big advantage in america we don't have that chance anymore because the land's all taken it's very expensive to begin farming here we have a chance to take as much land as needed because it's not used. their ears are cold and temperature was ok this morning there's always a challenge and america gets boring after a while everything's there everything is simple here. the same question everybody

is a farmer all over the world that we radiate so we like it i do it because. when we started i didn't know anything about it but the more i worked on the line the became of the more i mean he felt i was a real person i come here and i see the effect of the lives of over one hundred people the local community now in the shops become better and we're producing something that really is worth something i spent all my life selling and buying millions of tons of coal i never sold a colored paper here i'm seeing the product i get a great sense of satisfaction by doing. in a few moments we ask former german chancellor how do you avoid economic crisis in europe but before that we'll take another look at today's top stories.

one stream cascading from my. view is miss mancini. this beauty brings debt and a speed of more than two hundred kilometers. to stand in the long haul.

thank you for joining us for thirty here in moscow on karen town to give a quick recap of your headlines turning up of the tension france calls for tough new e.u. sanctions against iran targeting the country's financial and an artist satirist is accusing talk run of developing nuclear weapons even as of iran says it's ready to talk with the west about its atomic program. israel and the palestinians. back to the negotiating table for the first time since peace talks broke down more than a year ago but both sides have played down expectations of a breakthrough at the meeting. and the russian military is trying to restore its former glory with the kremlin to reform the armed forces the military industrial

complex has fallen behind technologically and become riddled with corruption. next we talked to former german chancellor and current chairman of the north stream gas pipeline schroeder he tells r.t. about the benefits all the energy cooperation between russia and the e.u. and discusses ways for the eurozone to escape its debt crisis. goes through the world chills love germany from two thousand and four if he's no chairman of the board at nordstrom. under the baltic sea to europe is just for the war should increase its dependence on goes problem. i know. we're not talking about russia's depend we're talking about cooperation between russia. and the european union.