germany pledged to boost growth and give more power to brussels to stem the day crisis but critics say when it comes to watching the pennies the e.u. itself sets a bad example. a very warm welcome to you from all of us here at r.t. moscow. more than two dozen civilians have allegedly been shot dead by security forces all across syria the report comes after the president delivered his first address in months dismissing pressure to resign but shot at al assad claims he still has the people support in leading the fight against what he's calling foreign funded terrorism promised to crush mercenaries and saboteurs with an iron fist saying they don't represent the syrian people he repeated his claim that no waters

were ever given to fire on a peaceful protesters we had a rating his commitment to democratic reform he said a referendum on a new constitution will take place by march the president also slammed the arab league which suspended syria's membership in november the league's observers are currently overseeing the implementation of a peace plan eleven monitors received minor injuries in an attack by protesters on monday international consultant thinks there's an element of selfish foreign involvement in syria. now sound is clearly not what you would call a democratic leader but within the context he should be not do on the contrary what janet lee is doing i mean the end of leak proof is in the back story in the united arab emirates would you review what i do is do a deal few do not show he is writing see not. pointing fingers. and i am aware that there is an international conspiracy where

there are elements that point out to my did that there is a part of it i think it's it's more complex than just that there is also genuine popular revolt but it is absolutely sure that there are elements from outside who are taking to rob you abusing whatever there is living among the syrian people for their own purposes that is absolutely. and one of the main questions on people's minds right now is how much longer will president assad's regime hold if you have an opinion a voice so don't hold it in just head over to our web site take part in our ongoing live worldwide poll and here are the numbers for you from our web site right now we are asking has assad done enough to hold on to power more than half of you think it doesn't matter even what he says because the west will interview intervene in syria soon less than a quarter reckon the president's only delay the inevitable and his time is running out even less think assad's doing his job well by spelling out how we're forms will

proceed and it barely any agree that he's bought himself time for more negotiations that poll just a few clicks away head over to r.t. dot com and cast your vote. well coming up in the program here on r t using your cash to provide for their own comfort. there's your money and there's my money you know where we're much more careful with the second than with the first trouble is that here in brussels it's all somebody else's money but now technocrats in brussels want more of it as we report despite the whole of europe struggling with the e.u.'s budget is only growing. out of the race for the white house is on and the republican presidential candidates are ready to tear political chunks off each other and nothing is off limits to get the vote. the u.s. called iran's enrichment of uranium at an underground site

a violation of u.n. resolutions however tehran assists its all for peaceful purposes president mahmoud ahmadinejad currently on a tour of south america said it was a joke to believe that iran was making bombs last minute job has received a strong backing from the venezuelan leader hugo chavez who has defended iran's nuclear program saying there was no sound proof that iran was developing atomic weapons. when he does i will shortly also visit nicaragua cuba and ecuador. comes off to washington apply tough sanctions targeting iran central bank finance industry with the e.u. expected to follow suit and the weapons campaign joel rubin says iran is trying to gain more support to prevent further penalties. i was looking for friends wherever he can find them he needs votes he needs the united nations to block future saying he also sees potential markets for commerce when the rest of the world looks to be

moving towards a more sanctions oriented position towards iran so if he can get votes and if you can get commerce in this trip to latin america which is a key one for him and for the united states since it's in our backyard that would be a success for him he needs to break out of the isolation that the rest of the world is trying to put him and iran into most analysts do not believe that iran is capable of maintaining a blockade of the straits of hormuz for any significant period of time if they were to do this it could also be counterproductive blocking all oil coming out of their own country or going back and forth would both hurt their own revenue source and also harm their allies in china and other countries around the world. but as well along with iran has long been an avid and see washington critic but a spy being portrayed as an enemy in the u.s. venezuela's president hugo chavez has found a way to warm the hearts of america's poorest people are an important as the story . winter morning in the south bronx new york city outdoors the temperature

is near freezing indoors. seventy seven year old alice many otis is bundled up brewing a pot of coffee and raising the heat just enough good to take the chill out of the air the retired grandmother of seven lives alone on a fixed income and each winter as federal programs continue to be slashed the struggle to afford comfort gets harder i call it add screaming and waving i mean all they do was raise raise raise raise and i mean it's the same dollar you get in so how far can you push it one hundred gallons of oil one hundred fifty gallons of oil is about the. right now about the close to six hundred dollars however venezuela has been stepping in to make alice's life a bit easier by delivering one hundred gallons of free heating oil each winter she is a four year beneficiary of the citgo venezuela heating oil program which provides free

heating oil to five hundred thousand poor americans living in low income neighborhoods and shelters throughout the country president chavez often demonized by washington helped launch the program in two thousand and five following hurricanes katrina and rita all i know is that he was caught and he was crying to the people of the united states and i'm sure he he he ruled differently like obama rowland's differently and the whole we used to tell these people how they should live or how i mean are they good invading our country with their not being generous to give us what comes out of their earth at no charge so could you really have ill feelings against them. i'm thankful for it. i really am in an interview with the venezuelan newspaper el universal americas leader sort of expressing similar sentiments of gratitude president obama recently accused the

chavez government restricting human rights and taking right wing steps. on the right value so the venezuelan leader didn't mince words while perspire ending directly to his u.s. counterpart you know was a bow i feel sorry for you just ask the black communities in your country what you mean to them you are the greatest disappointment of recent years the poor people of your country you're a great disappointment to them it's time that we stop minding everybody else's business and took care of business here we have children that are graduating from college with eighty ninety one hundred thousand dollars that they have to pay back it's to pay it's. just it and they can't get a job a struggle getting that much harder in the land of opportunity arena portnoy r.t. new york now it just approaching ten minutes past the hour here in moscow still ahead for you in the program sniffing out terror why

a busy moscow airport is relying on four legged friends to help fight crime. a race against the clock is well and truly under way in europe the leaders of the single currencies two most powerful countries are doing everything in their power to try and prevent a meltdown on the collapse of all the work for the german chancellor is today meeting the french head of the i.m.f. in berlin hoping to find a way forward despite a growing call for more action and less words on monday i'm going to call a nicolas sarkozy also called on greece to move forward with promised structural changes or risk losing the next installment of badly needed bailout money athens warned last week that the default was a possibility which could result in it leaving the euro europe is now working to hammer out. a new treaty agreed upon at a summit in december leading to tougher fiscal control and making budget rule breakers. directly to the e.u.

but many you are skeptics say putting more trust in brussels would be an era as aussies are. now reports. when times are this hard every cent counts for the seventeenth year in a row the european court of auditors refused to give the e.u. accounting books a clean a bill of health the court found that in two thousand and ten three point seven percent of the e.u.'s budget was spent in error that's four point five billion euros essentially wasted due to mistakes like ineligible or incorrect calculation of costs claim to e.u. co finance projects or breaches of public procurement rules to be fair brussels gets criticized because both of those you criticize. that said though it should forgive them for having that air raid there is a feeling that it's not unjustified bad in europe. brussels the commission institutions have not taken the really hard look at their budgets and done the hard cutting batt a lot of member states have in fact the e.u.

commission and parliament wanted to have some one hundred thirty three billion euros to spend next year but settled on one hundred twenty nine after tough negotiations with member states well that's still an increase of two percent because the e.u. budget uniquely continues to grow it only ever goes in one direction what they call a cut him means a slightly smaller increase and they would have wanted in an ideal world there are two kinds of money in the world there's your money and there's my money you know what we're much more careful with the second than with the first the trouble is that here in brussels it's all somebody else's money mostly their money. which is why criticism rose with the budgets committee approved thirty eight million euros for the purchase of three buildings to increase office space for any piece and their staff and the area behind me is a property that will be acquired by the european parliament the project for seize the demolition of an existing building and the creation of a new one the total cost one hundred twenty five million euros fifteen million of

which will come up from the budget. critics cried foul but the project supporters stand their ground when there is a new member states you need new space it is ridiculous to say that we don't need more space when we have more stuff but if you say that you mean to say that stuff is sitting on the show's needs while working or we have this responsibility to do legislation for five hundred million people in a proper way again there is an argument for this institution do need facilities the timing is just horrible and because the austerity measures impose a lot of member states the fact that brussels is ploughing on with grand plans for you know these beautiful new buildings just smells bad yet it's not just about new buildings or your kratz that raises eyebrows. how hard is it to just come up with with receipts when they have one when they have spent my experience base for this

of course it hurts them in fact some say the allure of being a euro crap to me also be hurting poor member states losing their best and brightest to brussels i just people in those countries the entrepreneurs the people who could have done so much making things inventing things selling things creating businesses in the states because nothing can compete with the advantages of being on the e.u. payroll they all start gravitating towards by the directly the brussels bureaucracy or in direct as the saying goes if you can't beat them join them. but that's clearly not a win win solution for everyone just our silly r r t brussels. and in about ten minutes time it's the hourly business update for you but for now the world update here some other global news in brief first our attention to that of our western pakistan's khyber region where a bomb blast targeting and taliban militia has gone off at a local market at least thirty five dead dozens injured is the deadliest attack in

the country in recent months that local islamist insurgents have been blamed militants with links to al qaeda have carried out hundreds of bombings in pakistan over the past few years in the meantime in neighboring afghanistan ten were killed in a taliban attack on a government building. libya has asked for more time to respond to the international criminal court which wants to know when more market afy son saif al islam will be handed over a deadline given by the i.c.c. is set to elapse in less than an hour is being held in the western town of is in town and is charged by the hague with crimes against humanity most prominent son of the country's late leader was captured in november while trying to flee into neighboring niger. as you nigeria now where roadblocks have been a satellite during the country's second day of straw. against soaring fuel costs police are using tear gas and firing into the air to disperse demonstrators this

comes just one day after three protesters died in clashes with offices the nationwide strike began after the government ended a popular fuel subsidy leading to a quick rise in gas and transportation costs all throughout the country. north korea has announced it will issue special pardons for convicts to mark the birthdays of two late leaders the state news agency said the amnesty will begin on the first of february in honor of kim jong il who died last month and his father kim il sung it's unknown what kind of crimes will be pardoned or how many inmates will be released the u.n. estimates the country holds around two hundred thousand people in political prisoner camps. voting in the key primary of the u.s. election season has begun in new hampshire where candidates for the republican presidential nomination a vying for victory they're hoping to take on barack obama in november the race for the white house former massachusetts governor mitt romney has been well ahead in

the opinion polls with congressman ron paul and former senator rick santorum some way behind ahead of the vote candidates continue the political point scoring and nothing was off limits the former massachusetts governor was mocked by rivals during a debate after saying he enjoyed firing people political comedian dean obeidallah told us here at our t.v. that by addressing issues like guns gays and abortion and republicans are just fighting for ratings. they're trying to find something that sensational that's what media does that's their job if it was a boring debate about economics how many people are going to watch it let's be honest it becomes bland and boring it's a lot of numbers most people including myself would struggle understanding what is going on but everyone understands abortion in gay marriage and contraception so those are the easy issues it makes it easier. to talk about them let's be honest let's talk about jobs as talk about the economy i have to think the reality is that these republican candidates it's not an easy thing to have an answer they don't

have an answer unemployment's gone down and picked october two thousand and nine a ten point one percent it's down now in december to eight point five percent maybe obama's policies contribute maybe they don't maybe it's cyclical in any event the economy is improving and these republicans don't have answers so they want to tell what the social issues the heart issues the ones that make you go out and vote as you make them make phone calls and get people to come out to the polls they scare you it works before it works many times of four they're just trying to use the same play from the old republican playbook i think we're going to get back to the economy that's what americans want to hear when is president obama versus mitt romney and that the that will be the issue it has to be that's the one we all want to hear about so i think for now this is a game they're running for republican nomination until that republican issues and we get the big battle the super bowl if you will that's we're going to hear the real issues we want to hear about. what he is coming to life from moscow what's more online at all it's he taught called including america's foreign policy future president obama's plan to cut back on troops in asia but increase the number of

bases provoke the wrath of china but also i want our website for you. possible reasons behind the failure of russia's first mars interplanetary mission in years all revealed find out of those details at r.t. dot com. now twenty minutes past the hour here i want to moscow's busiest airport is relying on a special breed of canine to help fight terror with a sense of smell unmatched by any other dog these furry crime fighters spend their days sniffing out explosives he's pretty want to paint them. as it put their nose as to the test. among those four legged friends on the front line in the fight against terror these dogs are special breed part musky part jackal and it's their

sense of smell which makes them perfect for sniffing out explosives in an airport terminal or when it turns out that of all the canines it's the jackal that has the best sense of smell so it was logical to use that to improve the sense of smell and dogs like you basically are grafted or won't be sense of smell to a domesticated animal of what their husky heritage means that they can handle temperatures as low as minus seventy degrees centigrade while the jackal side of the family provides them with equally impressive abilities and heat their. jackals or as some tropical animal that's used to high temperatures as an experiment we took these hybrids to the united arab emirates where they were able to work equal to two degrees centigrade if they could look on sand which was heated by the sun to sixty degrees ordinary dogs wouldn't be able to handle that but it did get a buddhist sort of. this early most dogs have two hundred and twenty million smell

receptors forty four times more than human this allows them to detect even trace amounts of explosive material making them invaluable for airports looking to put passengers at their ease the best way and that ever working with these dogs among passengers makes people feel more secure in the airport this way passengers see that era flight to give special attention to security as for accuracy of even detected gunpowder residue on the clothes of hunter was returning home. with the animals having to work in an environment filled with distracting sights sounds and smells it's important that the dogs and their handlers have a close relationship police gave it to things there has to be trust between the two the dog should feel absolutely free and shouldn't be pressured. bikes as a discipline there's a hand there is have to be extremely attentive and they should notice and immediately respond to the dogs for every motion and reaction but it is the

petition you might push. a false alarm is detected unless the north point five percent of searches making the dogs far more reliable than the best man made the texan device much of that is down to the breeding but a lot of training is required before they are ready to work amongst the public so while it doesn't take the dog long to find what was hidden underneath my seat but it's all well and good doing it here on the training ground but how will i fare in the busy atmosphere of an international airport on an average day over one hundred thousand people pass through this terminal achieve a mitzvah airport plenty of distractions making it the perfect place to conduct a test this bike here contains around three grams of plastic explosive i'm going to go and hide somewhere here in the terminal while florida tries to track me down. for august sets about sniffing me out to finally choose no searching every nook and

cranny in which a potentially dangerous package could be hidden when you see these hybrid dogs in action it's clear why they're so well suited to working in the airport some passengers don't even notice that they're part of their investigation. sure enough she finds me trying to check in for a flight but. well good. no matter how hard you try to hide if you have explosives these amazing animals will find you. r.t. moscow. thank auspex for the past this. welcome to business traders are closely monitoring the escalating tensions between iran and the west if the worst case scenario comes to polls some analysts say all could jump to two hundred dollars a barrel but nick parsons from national australia bank explains why that's unlikely

. i think the very very close relationship between the external value of the u.s. dollar and oil has begun to slip over the course of the last few months if we mind ourselves of where we were three summers ago the oil price eight hundred forty seven dollars per barrel exactly on the day when the euro dollar exchange rate one sixty so we had a very weak u.s. dollar we had a very high oil price that relationship has held good over a long period of time now if it were based purely on that then we'd be looking today at an oil price or around seventy or seventy five dollars so that suggests to me that a lot of the potential disruption that we hear talked about is already in the price and i doubt very much that we're going to see the sort of spike that some of the wilder analysts are talking about i think a lot of it is already in the price. and the all process is continuing to rise to not only to tensions with iran but also consumer credit from the united states

that's expected to boost demand light sweet has gone over one hundred three dollars a barrel. u.s. stocks have opened strongly in the black tracking gained in europe and asia also the sentiment supported by an upbeat stock to be u.s. earnings reporting season. let's check out our financials have done well today as they make up previous losses here people almost six percent this hour commerzbank up almost seven percent in frankfurt the footsies up over four thousand seven hundred points in the last few minutes that's up one and a half percent. russian markets have edged into the red in the last hour as investors cash them healthy gains for the day both e.l.t.'s and most states are hovering negative ground. and now the biggest movers almost six. on the rois supported by stronger crude of over one and a half percent at the moment truck may could come as is also gaining of reported a forty percent increase. in sales for twenty eleven but retail

a seventh continent is continuing to slow it will report its parent company will boil back its shares at a record low price. today even despite we're seeing put it in the past couple of trading days to do some market going higher and most blue chips went up by one point five to five per cent actually so since burbank and pretty big driving the market by almost three point four percent higher the single asked from being as high as one point five percent of black process in the rules can be five percent up search the market is on the positive right now so everyone is really inspired by a positive macro data from the united states and people expect that probably this new year rally which we didn't observe in the last trading weeks of the last year will continue right now. on to other news now a british luxury car maker rolls royce has reported record sales for last year and

he sold more than three and a half thousand cars the highest in its hundred seven year history sales group particularly falls in germany and russia where they more than doubled. that's the latest business will have more. wealthy british style. that's not on the time.

markets why not come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with max concert for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into cars a report. if they shoot something inappropriate for public they can easily be shown to accept casualties of war ok. i wish he would have never happened but it has happened. in a war a t.v. camera becomes an unnecessary what destroys their own safety all foreign nationals including journalists and inspectors should leave around. and it's clear what happens with such witnesses i got on my site. one of many objects submitted. a.

merciless shooting on our. it's not about spilling blood. it's the war of the barricades from one side and fears blockade from the other. invisible border has cut people from the land for twelve years. the conflict that divided serbia into two hostile parts is still not over. the mission of free accreditation free in-store judges free arrangement free. three stooges free.

download free broadcast quality video for your media projects a free video done to r.t. dot com. now seven thirty pm here in the russian capital this is your headlines now syria's president says he still has the people support and will not step down all of this as he blames the on unrest in the country on foreign forces promising to clamp down on so-called terrorists with an iron fist shot at al assad also pledged to continue democratic reforms with a referendum on a new constitution that is slated for march. iran and dismisses washington's criticism about its nuclear program as ludicrous.