around the clock around the world this is r.t. live in moscow the u.n. says that four hundred people have been killed in syria since arab league observers arrived late last month to assess the implementation of a peace plan the claims come off to president assad delivered his first public address in months saying he still has the people support in fighting against foreign funded terrorism a sad repeated his previous claims that no orders have ever been given to fire on peaceful protesters the president also turned his venom on the arab league saying it has failed to protect arab interests and he promised to hold a referendum on a new constitution within two months russia has reiterated support for the league monitoring mission and stressed it must observe all sides in the conflict let's not get some insight from political science professor usually ws joining me live now.

from beirut so a sad as promised to crush what he calls the foreign funded terrorist threat and says he will continue democratic reforms is he going about the right way to solve this conflict do you think. well i think today was a big chance to actually reach out to the entire population including the opposition groups and to start negotiating a transition process i think he didn't use the opportunity to its full potential and i think that things are now going to get a lot worse it appears to me that he is now considering a military solution which i would consider from the perspective perspective of beirut to be the worst possible option and if there is a continuation or indeed you say a start of a military pursuit there what's the reaction we get now from not just the arab league but also the u.n. after all some of the opposition a calling now for u.n. intervention. well i think it's not only the u.n. it's obviously also turkey and arab league and the e.u.

i think that assad's been holding off ironically if you look at the bloodshed. i don't think the u.n. will stand by idly but i don't see the options as very good in anybody's hands i think the cards are bad around the table what assad needs to be doing is looking at models that were similar to his situation let's say for example in south africa and rhodesia zimbabwe where they were at the that impasse and found a peaceful solution i don't think he's actually considering this possibility but that i think is the way out that's something i think the u.n. should also be considering he's saying is a foreign funded terrorist threat many are saying there is a western agenda behind this uprising what evidence is there for that and indeed what would be the intention all of a regime change on behalf of the u.s. and the western world bearing in mind the implications that could lead to if he doesn't the top will. well obviously there is western involvement the

significant syrian diaspora the e.u. the us the pro western countries in the arab world of putting tremendous pressure so there is foreign intervention in a more practical level i'm sure that there's a lot of ties across the borders between lebanon and syria and iraq and syria however if assad wants to stay in power and not go the way of the other arab regimes yes to look at models where there has been a sort of military impasse on both sides and where the the solution has been found through negotiation serious negotiations with the opposition. i'm not sure that he actually sees himself in that position yet if you look at the situation at the end of the civil war in rhodesia it looked intractable it looked like there was a lose lose situation there and they found a way to include mugabe in the government and it was a peaceful resolution of the problem same thing in south africa i think these are the models the arab spring is not the model and it's not not eastern europe it's

the model i think the model of southern africa but isn't that a problem when you talk about the opposition there are so many different factors making up that opposition is there really one clear person one clear organization that could indeed be representative of all the various interests in syria it's not a straight forward is what we saw in labor is it not when the m.t.c. did actually have some sort of cohesion. well that's the point there isn't a clear opposition what has to happen now is we have to find arbiters we have to find people who are interested in a peaceful solution that allows the best part to stay in power and include the rest of the country in the negotiating process i don't see anybody obviously the u.s. and that you are not interested in this they want regime change as does the arab league to a large extent we need somebody who has the the trust and who can act in good faith to negotiate on the one hand with the asada regime on the other hand with the opposition that is not unified of course but the unification will take place through negotiations the third party this neutral trusted third party is completely

missing at the point at them at this point and i see the worst for syria and the greater region if things do not change dramatically you would think that third party would be made up of the arab world and the arab league so where would you suggest that third parties should come from. well in the past these have been. business groups these have been religious groups the vatican has played a role and in certain conflicts international peacekeeping groups that are non-state players of played a role i think assad has to reach out to the people who've who've helped countries transition in the past who who have been in similar situations and he has to take the initiative to say ok we're going to sit down i want to call it a third party that i can trust and they can trust and these can be the players that have i'm bringing up again the issue of rhodesia and south africa where the international church organizations for example played

a huge role so just very briefly just of them ok just very briefly if negotiations cheve by some sort of mediator do you think a sad could survive all of this just briefly absolutely absolutely it's in his interest to bring in a third party that he can trust and they can trust and i would say from a lebanese perspective that is the solution thank you very much great to hear thoughts you joining us live there in beirut political science professor thank you for your time thank you. well coming up in the program using your cash to provide for their own comfort. the money and as my mother you know we're much more careful with the second than with the first trouble is that here in brussels it's somebody else's money. and now technocrats in brussels want more of it as we report despite all of europe struggling to use budget is only growing. the unclear future libya raises fears over the fate of colonel gadhafi is jailed son failing to provide the hague with information regarding his status. all that still

to come but first the u.s. has called iran's enrichment of uranium at an underground site a violation of u.n. resolutions however tehran insists it is for peaceful purposes russia's expressed concern about the launch of the enrichment facility and urge all parties to avoid any hasty moves president mahmoud ahmadinejad currently on a tour of south america said it was a joke to believe iran was making bombs and in his yard had received strong backing from the venezuelan leader who defended iran's nuclear program hugo chavez said there was no sound proof that to run was developing atomic weapons i did a job will also visit nicaragua cuba and ecuador this plant all 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 until 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 votes at 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 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. that is went on with iran has long been an avid anti washington critic but despite 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 report not as

a story. winter morning in the south bronx new york city outdoors the temperature is near freezing indoors. seventy seven year old alison many otis is bundled up brewing a pot of coffee and raising the he 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 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 help march 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 differently like obama does differently and who will we to tell these people how they should live or have i mean are they going vay they are our country but they are 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 now that. i look at it valueless the venezuelan leader didn't mince words while responding directly to his u.s. counterpart you know what i feel sorry for you you just asked the black communities in your country what you mean to them you're 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 dipping it's looming just it and they can't get a job a struggle getting that much harder in the land of opportunity. r.t.

new york a race against the clock is well and truly underway in europe the leaders of the single currency is two most powerful countries are doing everything in their power to try and prevent meltdown and the collapse of all they want for the german chancellor has begun the meeting with the head of the i.m.f. christine lagarde hoping to find a way forward despite a growing call for more action and less words on monday are going to merkel and nicolas sarkozy also called on greece to move forward but promised structural changes or risk losing the next installment of badly needed may not mind athens one last week the default was a possibility which could result in it leaving the euro europe is now working to hammer out a new treaty agreed at the summit in december leading to tougher fiscal controls and making budget rule breakers. directly. but many euro skeptics say putting more trust in brussels would be an error as our teams to the polls. when times are this hard every cent counts for the seventieth 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 juta 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 persons you criticize. that said though it should forgive them for having that error rate there is a feeling that it's not unjustified that in europe brussels the commission institutions have not taken the really hard look at their budgets and done the hard cutting that 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 it'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 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 state 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 each of those needs while working there we have this responsibility to do legislation for five hundred million people in a proper way again there is an organ for this to the institution and do need facilities the timing is just horrible and because the austerity measures impose a lot of member states the fact that brussels is we are plowing on with grand plans for you know these beautiful new buildings just smells bad yet it's not just about new buildings where you're kratz that raises eyebrows how hard is it to just come up with. receipts when they have one in the house but my experience base for this sort of course of hers in fact some say the allure of being a euro kratom may also be hurting poorer 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 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 just our silly r r t brussels libya has been given an extension by the international criminal court to generate the tenth deadline to provide information about saif al islam the most prominent son of the country's lately to colonel gaddafi is being held in the western tunnels in turn and is charged by the hague with crimes against humanity the president of the arab lawyers association. told me earlier that he thinks it's important for libyans not to surrender gadhafi some. government does not have control of our safe a coffee he's in the hand of the. ins in town i think the libyans are not really

interested in handing him over to the international court i think because as far as that concerned they think that they can trust they can sets five year 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 it's actually independent of the western powers powers and countries that they have taken action against libya don't forget it's the western powers that destroyed libya it's the western powers and nato that was actually something that man from the air they were going to kill him so suddenly they become all that concerned about his human rights is a little bit of tongue in cheek talk i don't think it is serious but i don't think the courts in libya will be able to deliver justice to him. time now for some news from around the world in brief and first to north western pakistan's khyber region

and i think this is our last targeting and taliban militia or the local market has left at least thirty five dead and dozens injured as 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 were killed in a taliban attack on a government building. in nigeria now 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 meanwhile unions in the city of carnage of council protests after five people were killed a nationwide strike began after the government ended a popular fuel subsidy leading to a rising gas and transportation costs throughout the country. 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 you an estimate the country holds around two hundred thousand people in political prisoner camps. well that brings up to date for the moment i'll be back with a summary of our headlines in about ten minutes from now in the meantime two thousand and eleven saw revolution fever sweep through the arab world toppling regimes and sometimes bringing even more discontent and frustration r.t. now talks to the author and scholar jean sharp about whether nonviolent revolution is actually a possibility and if outside military intervention can ever bring peaceful democracy that's a special interview next on r.t. .

i'm sitting down with gene sharp his book from dictatorship to democracy is seen by many as a guide on how to carry out a revolution through nonviolent means it's often referred to as the bible of color revolutions dr sharp looking at how revolutions unfold in the arab world do you see it as transition from dictatorship to democracy i see your first step in the trades is the sense of bringing down the old system the old dictatorial system and it doesn't seem to you that people there are trading one form of oppression for another that happens. if that happens then it's

a good set to bring down the old oppression. but it's not citizens so they have to be very careful always seems the egyptians weren't very careful what they have now is their military brutally cracking down on protesters we hear about all kinds of abuses islamists are gaining power in the country my question is this what kind of democracy could the current state of affairs in egypt possibly create. removes made a mistake they should never green bird condition give the power to the army and then i'll resign never stooge because there's that army as it's been the agent i would be praising in egypt for decades and they're not going to change overnight it's unclear what their strategy is i don't know i don't have the to the information of what their pricing is and all that it's a different kind of situation that we don't really know. well they did start out as

a largely nonviolent popular uprising but we see what it turned into could it be that your concept of nonviolent uprisings is kind of all we're doing in this day and age i mean look at the arab world it's a bloody mess you get the misses going you get people standing up and saying we want a change because there's no knight to be told we don't love you anymore you're going to be told senator go and they will use whatever means of controlling repression and killing and intimidation they can muster and when to not be surprised that so uprisings like that can't be nonviolent in principle they can if they go into the bios many many more would die. divines is not a solution to people dying many people are killed in the run of the uprising and civil wars and international military intervention in the face of number.

as in syria for example and then you know if they go into a civil war for an intervention in syria many many many more will die is said to critics of the syrian opposition absolutely refuses to talk to the government don't you think it deepens the crisis adds to the violence what they're doing they're refusing to negotiate because negotiations are trick that the government do pressure governments to use to get the resisters not to resist but you could go with the dictatorship if you have to throw it out but that situation basically rules out nonviolent struggle that you were talking about it provokes while it is causing the regime. use what i don't see maybe. so people should be dying in the name of revolution is that what you're saying and you seem to have. something that only means are powerful quite to the contrary oh no i just see

a bloody mess instead of the idea makes nonviolence surge that you are writing about in the book let me ask you this the us nato have set a precedent with the military intervention in libya could it do you think it creates a situation in syria where radical elements among the syrian opposition are more inclined to provoke these sorties in order to invite an intervention i think. military intervention is very dangerous and there's or will. they be and and some syrians have been doing that that's very unfortunate because that will not help that we're not being a democracy that would be a victory by the outside forces assuming you get rid of the old regime then the new regime will be heavily influenced by the powers that intervene us in france or whoever has that they will have a major say over government happens and that's not the power of the syrian people

but yours i think should be is that what happened in libya yes in your opinion what's in it for the u.s. when it decides to meddle in foreign revolutions in foreign affairs you know that as well they're better than i do you know. i'm not talking about u.s. policy why let's talk about it why opinion is u.s. government should not be intervening in military in the name of the seventeen to barker's because if it doesn't work in a concert brother objective what about nonmilitary means it seems they're using all kinds of means nonmilitary means a service should be news not by the us government but by the people of that country to get rid of a lot of people are getting the sense that washington is more into establishing friendly regimes rather than democracies if we take libya for example people there are afraid to speak up right now i mean we have reporters on the ground and they have to blur people's faces all the time because people are afraid of being seen

the leadership there is about to introduce sharia law as the basis for their new laws which is pretty much incompatible with democratic values so libya pretty much looks like an example of how instead of a supposed transition to democracy people are getting pretty much the opposite you know i think the b.'s a different case because that's a case where the. change was not brought down by a number of. foreign forces combined with civil war but down the gadhafi regime that's not an example of the government to serve the world thank you very much for the interview but it's been a pleasure. this is our time. to reclaim the american dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth that

out of many we are one that won't we breathe we hope. to me the american dream is to live in peace and prosperity and freedom and a government under socialism is not a government a free. man. you . have very motivated out cross the country who are activists who are willing to fight for what they think is right for themselves but the fact is forty four bridge. we are drowning in property drowning and i think it's threatened by it's cutting off our. it's making real democracy. all but impossible.

not from moscow this is could have you with us this hour top stories now syria's president says he still has the people support and blames the unrest on foreign forces promising to root out so-called terrorists. also criticize the arab league for being biased moscow says the league's observers in syria should monitor all sides of the conflict and. iran dismisses washington's criticism about its nuclear program as ludicrous to the u.s. imposes tough economic sanctions meanwhile president ahmadinejad's received strong backing from the venezuelan leader.