around the clock around the world this is r.t. life in moscow more than thirty civilians have allegedly been shot dead by security forces across syria the report comes after the president delivered his first address in months dismissing pressure to resign bashar al assad claims he still has the people support in leading the fight against what he's calling foreign funded terrorism sounds promise to crush mercenaries and saboteurs with an iron fist saying they do not represent the syrian people he repeated his claim that no orders were ever given to fight peaceful protesters which are raising 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 and league observers are currently overseeing the implementation of a peace plan eleven members of the team received minor injuries in an attack by

protesters on monday moscow stresses the league should monitor the activity of all sides of the conflict international consultant low defenders thinks there is an element of selfish foreign involvement in syria. now so there's clearly not what you would call a democratic leader but within the context he's certainly not the worst one on the country. to me he's doing i mean you do see an overly critters in the back arrange the united arab emirates saudi arabia you. do a deal few do monarchies show he is writing c. are not the ones that should point a finger at him whether there is an international conspiracy where there are elements that point out to me did it there is part of it i think it's more complex than just that there is also genuine talk of all but it is absolutely sure that there are elements from outside who are taking abusing whatever there is living

among the syrian people for their own purposes that is absolutely. one of the main questions on people's minds right now is how much longer will president assad's regime hold if even opinion to voice just head to our website we could hear from you and take part in our ongoing live poll and many of you already have reacted so far let's look at the responses right now we're asking has a sad done enough to hold on to power around half of all voters think it doesn't even matter what he says because the west will intervene in syria soon less than a quarter reckon the president's only delayed the inevitable and his time is running out even less voters think that science doing his job well by spreading out how reforms will proceed and barely any agree that he's bought himself time for more. while that poll is just a few clicks away if you want to be part of it just head to r.t. dot com and vote if we haven't done so already. we're coming up on the program this hour here on r.t.

using your cash to provide for their own comfort. is your money and as my body you know we're much more careful but the second one with the first trouble is that here in brussels it's all somebody else's money. and now technocrats in brussels want war of it as we report despite the whole of europe struggling news budgets only growing. still to come but first the u.s. has called iran's enrichment of uranium at an underground site a violation of un resolutions however taran insists it is for peaceful purposes president mahmoud ahmadinejad's currently on a tour of south america said it was a joke to believe iran was making bombs and the decision had received strong backing from the venezuelan leader who defended iran's nuclear program. there was no proof that iran was developing atomic weapons i mean does god will also visit nicaragua cuba and it could all this plan talk comes after washington applied tough

sanctions targeting iran's central bank and its finance industry with the e.u. expected to follow suit the weapons campaign. iran is trying to gain more support to prevent the penalties that he. is looking for friends wherever he can find them he needs votes he needs votes in the united nations to block future saying he also needs potential markets for commerce when the rest of the world looks to be moving towards a more sanctions oriented position towards iran so if you can get votes and if you can get commerce that is when 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 and 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. and as we went along with iran has long been an avid washington critic but despite being portrayed as an enemy in the u.s. venezuela's president hugo chavez has found a way to win the hearts of america's poorest people report not as a story. winter morning in the south bronx in 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. 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. and waving i mean all they do

was raise raise raise raise and i mean it's the same dollar you get and so how far can you push it one hundred gallons of oil one hundred fifty gallons of oil is about 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 kind to the people of the united states and i'm sure he he he ruled differently like obama wrongs differently and the whole we used to tell these people how they should live

or how i mean are they going vay they are 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 america's leader well sort of expressing similar sentiments of gratitude president obama recently accused the chavez government were strict thing human rights and taking frightening steps. on the product value the venezuelan leader didn't mince words walter spondon directly to his u.s. counterpart you know was a boma i feel sorry for you just toss the black communities of your country what you mean to them you 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 its to p.t. it's knowing them just and they can't get a job a struggle getting that much harder in the land of opportunity arena portnoy r.t. new york. r.t. live here in moscow still ahead this hour the race for the white house is on the republican presidential candidates are ready to take political swipes at each other and nothing is off limits to get the vote. but first a race against the clock is well and truly under way in europe the leaders of the single currency is two most powerful countries are doing everything in their power to try and prevent a meltdown and the collapse of all they've worked 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 merkel and

nicolas sarkozy also calling on greece to move forward with promised structural changes or risk losing the next installment of badly needed bailout money athens war last week that default was a possibility which could result in it leaving the euro europe is now working to hammer out a new treaty agreed to the summit in december leading to tougher fiscal control and making budget rule breakers cultural directly to the e.u. but many zero skeptics say that putting more trust in brussels would be an error. reports. when times are this hard every cent counts for a seventy year in a row the european court of auditors refused to give the e.u. accounting books a clean 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.

call finance projects or breaches of public procurement rules to be fair brussels gets criticized because you criticize. that said oh forgive them for having that air raid there is a feeling that it's not unjustified 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 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 arose 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 of the project supporters stand their ground when there is a new member state you need new space it is ridiculous to say that we don't need more space when we have more stuff if you say that you mean to say that stuff is sitting on each of those 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 to do facilities the

timing is just horrible 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 for your kratz that raises eyebrows. hard to just come up with. receipts when they have one in the house but my experience for this sort of course of hers 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 and states because nothing can compete with the advantages of being on the e.u. payroll they all start gravitating towards by that directly to 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. r.t. brussels. libya has asked the international criminal court for a three week extension to a general ten deadline to provide information about. the most prominent son of the country's late leader colonel gadhafi is being held in the western town of then town and is charged by the hague with crimes against humanity will talk more about the future of both so there's no man libya i'm not sure. he's the president of the arab lawyers association joining me in london why do you think the libyan leader failed to meet the deadline i think in the first instance because actually the government does not have control of their safe. he's in the hands of the. ins and secondly i think the libyans are not really interested in handing him over to the international court and thirdly i think because as far as they're concerned they

think that they can try they can satisfy the requirement of their people to try him one on the basis that they are getting the people are getting their own rights from him rather than the foreigners and secondly the government would want to show its people that is actually independent. of the western powers and countries that they have. taken action against libya and i think i should ask you on that point because you are a lawyer now the i.c.c. has said that they will accept the fact that the case could go ahead in libya but they are concerned that he won't face a fair trial now as i say you are a lawyer do you really believe that the judicial system in the country is ready for such a trial quite frankly i don't think so on the other hand i'm not so certain actually that the western powers or indeed even the i.c.c. is really all that interested in human rights issues don't forget it's the western powers that destroyed libya it's the western powers and nato that was actually.

hunting that man from the air they were going to kill him so suddenly they become all that concerned on his human rights is a little bit of tongue in cheek talk i don't think it is serious but i don't think that course in libya will be able to deliver justice to him something to to interrupt you say concerned about his welfare human rights issue but surely it wouldn't be a good reflection on the n.t. see if he is treated badly or indeed sentenced to death after a trial in libya i mean surely the implications would be negative wouldn't say well i'd be the first instance i don't think the m.d.c. actually thinks that he is not going to get an unfair trial they think that they can deliver a fair trial secondly i think that sentence is really what was expected by the libyan people and the sentence is out of the libyan though they think that the crimes that he has committed once sentence the i.c.c.

in the rest of the international community really want that to happen. well i don't think they would want that to happen they actually want him to be tried at the i.c.c. because we want to redress some of the lack of credibility of the i.c.c. and the current prosecute. i think mr boyd has done the course disservice i think the incoming prosecutor would want to restore some of this credibility to the i.c.c. but i think at the end of the day i don't think the libyans are really interested in handing him over to the i.c.c. let's talk about what's happening in the country at the moment latest reports say that the u.s. and a number of western countries have released about twenty billion dollars from gadhafi as accounts and handed the money to the n t c is this an invitation to corruption or do you think that money really will be well spent well in the first instance you know the idea that this is his money i think it's a misnomer this money is

a libyan money it's the government of libya's money it's been many more money months of money that's being held by other countries which are not being released the amounts of money that the people of libya are entitled to whether we talk about it's going to be used or abused in libya i don't think it's really for the outside world to do so at the present moment we have all accepted that the regime in libya . with all its problems is the government that is in libya and if they are going to use it they will not be the first country to use the money that we did before there are many countries at the present moment in many countries of the world that they are abusing the funds you have one example for instance iraq is a country which is at the bottom of transparency international because they were liberated by the americans and everybody is quiet about it so why not use their own money it's their own money ok so if money isn't going to sort out the problem what

about the potential democratic process which is been shut off for the future not too sure when really but despite attempts by libya's new government to bring peace to the country do you think that those promised elections in the future will bring stability and settle the disputes between the rebel groups that we're seeing conflicting against each other at the moment. unfortunately not all that of domestic come out of this situation because what we have done is we have destroyed the state the state was a bad state it had to ship in there but at the end of the day the interference of the outside world and the way we have done it and that is nato and europe and the usa it's really building up to this situation this country is going through a very difficult time of the present moment it's not i know you're patient but at the same time it's been destroyed as a state and we are asking the people now to reinvent the wheel again while everybody is really pushing them into getting their interest in companies and the

rest of the european countries the western europe is actually each one of them is looking for their piece of cake and everyone is using its own contacts in libya the libyan people there and there are many people in libya who are either bought by the french or the british or they don't answer the americans who are whoever and indeed qatar is playing out all this is in a situation where we have armed all the people who have destroyed the infrastructure of this state as bad as it was now we are expecting them to behave as if it's an organized state as if existing law which has control of all its territory well in fact d.c. still do not control many of the cities and many of the factions within libya some album thanks for your time thanks your thoughts live there in london. thank you. for some news now from around the world in brief and first to northwestern pakistan

scott region bomb blast targeting taliban militia at a local market has left at least thirty five people dead and dozens injured it's the deadliest attack in the country in recent months and 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 people were killed in a taliban attack on a government building. to nigeria where roadblocks have been set alight during the country's second day of strikes 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 a nationwide strike began after the government ended a popular fuel subsidy leading to a rising gas and transportation costs throughout the country. north korea has announced it will issue special pardons for convicts to the birthdays of two leaders the state news agency said the amnesty will begin on the first of february kim jung il who died last month and his father kim il soon it's unknown what kind

of crimes will be pardonable 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 the u.s. election season has begun in new hampshire where candidates for the republican presidential nomination vying for victory 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 the head of the vote candidates continue the political point scoring and nothing was off limits former massachusetts governor romney was mocked by rivals during a debate after saying he enjoyed foreign people who tickle comedian dean obeidallah has told r.t. that by addressing issues like guns gays and abortion republicans are just. all of a team. there trying to find something that sensational that's what the media does

that's their job 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 of what is going on but everyone understands abortion and gay marriage and contraception so those are the easy issues it makes it easier for us 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 and 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 are ones that make you go out and vote make you make phone calls get people to come out to the polls they scare you it works before it worked many times of for the 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 what is president obama versus mitt romney at the beat 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 the republican issues then we get to the big battle the super bowl if you will that's really here the real issues we want to hear about. lots more i should say online dot com including america's foreign policy future president obama's plan to cut back on troops in asia or increase the number of bases provoke china its own website at the moment a possible reasons behind the failure of russia's closed interplanetary mission in new years all revealed or not why an r.t. dot com online all the time.

and i'll be back with a recap of our main stories very shortly but first it's daniel with the latest business news. business traders are closely monitoring the escalating tensions between iran and the west if the worst case scenario comes to polls. 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 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. now russia's markets edged into the red in the last hour of trade as investors custom healthy gains for the day. just all negative ground and now the biggest movers on the more six oil majors were on the rois as expected supported by that stronger crude price luko was up over one of the percent truck make it come as was also gaining reported a full two percent increase in sales for twenty eleven retailers several continents not almost full team has said a report its parent company will avoid back its shares at a record low price. today even despite we see

a rule in the past couple of trading days to do some market going higher and most 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. five percent search of the market is on the positive try and ask. 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 in the last trading weeks of the last year will continue right now. but to other news british luxury car maker rolls royce has reported record sales for last year the company sold more than three the whole thousand cause the highest in its hundred seven year history sales group particularly first in germany and russia where they more than doubled.

that's the latest business stay with r.t. for the news headlines.

it is. just so. to please. the band and the book.

will feel. technology innovation has developed around russia. says. the u.s. imposed economic sanctions.