worldwide news live from the heart of moscow this is with me rory sushi eleven people have reportedly been killed by security forces across syria on wednesday but al assad has spoken to supporters in damascus this for the second time in the last twenty four hours reiterating his dismissal of calls to step down he's blaming the ten month long on the rest in the country that over on the foreign funded terrorists promising to crush them with extreme prejudice the u.n. says damascus has stepped up its crackdown on protesters but assad claim is no order was ever given to fire on civilians the president's pledge commitment to democratic reform promising a referendum on a new constitution by march and free elections soon after for more on the

developments let's cross to beirut and speak to political analyst dr automatic much xabi i thank you for coming on the program today the pressure is certainly mounting on president assad and he's now responded by making not one but two addresses in twenty four hours is that enough for him to stay in power or is it just a case of too little too late. well it's not about addresses it's not about speeches it's not words that can keep said empowered it's action and i think the appearance of president yesterday at the university of can ask is. was he presented a long long review of everything that actually took place since the beginning of trouble the different areas today was more like it was actually a show of popularity yet more than that it was a move by the president to be in direct contact with his supporters in syria and the supporters of the president seem to be. majority in syria this is even

recognized by qatari institutes of research who actually did some research although they were very critical of the president and asked him to step down. instituted some research showing that this is a saying that fifty five percent of the syrians refused the president to step down and that this is the case i mean if the white house say fifty five percent i could imagine the number could be higher than that anyway so i didn't write that you have to say that a moment ago as you're speaking here we've been showing pictures of assad dressing what appears to be massive crowd of people below let's let's take the attention away from as you said perhaps a fifty five percent of support for him it's now up to the arab league to tell the world whether damascus is sticking to its promises to end the crackdown on protesters but just now one of the league's observers have said the regime is guilty of war crimes is this what we're likely to hear from the arab body after its mission to syria comes to an end in just over

a week. well let's see let's see the arab league there's one person who stepped down from the arab league observers mission so he actually claimed that on television and well that's not exactly a liable if there is one person who stepped down. from the arab league monitors commission does that mean that he has the ability and the whole arab league doesn't so let's wait for the report to come out but i have to remind the viewers perhaps it would be adequate to remind the viewers that the arab league is under tremendous pressure from the west and we can see the statements coming out from washington and from paris and from london that are so critical and calling. to step down so it would be to their benefit that the report of the arab league would actually criticize the city or thought is that we go back to that speech if i may as a speech was a direct communication with the masses as i said it made to commitments one commitment that had to do with democratic reform as you pointed at the beginning of this program the second commitment is that it would be unacceptable to have city in

chaos and that i think it's something for the interest of all the syrians i mean this is a matter when people are shooting at the army shooting at government institutions using weapons in order to attack government institution and to actually force change in syria this is something that cannot be accepted in any country anywhere in the world the syrian army and the syrian police will actually be very harsh on any terrorist or any person who carries guns and uses violence against. their legitimate and i do say that i'm sorry to interrupt you again but as you say there is violence coming from both sides of the conflict you are saying that it what some are calling militants and those in opposition to the government are we're seeing here russia and china calling for the condemnation of violence from all sides of the conflict the u.n. security council now it all adds with eastern members of the world but the u.s. and its allies as you said were to go up putting all the blame on assad if the u.n. council doesn't come to a consensus could we see junie lateral action taken by some countries. well i

hope not and i don't think that there will be any unilateral action because the because of the position of the russian federation and the the people's republic of china their position is very clear so that creates a certain balance and the presence of the russian fleet. i think there is a group from the russian navy in the luckiest seaport that creates also a signal that could preserve stability in the region because it shows that there is no international consensus on on intervention on military intervention in syria as was the case in libya all right ally from beirut a political analyst dr xabi thank you for coming on r.t. today thank you and some of syria's neighbors have a take and have their own take on the crisis that is turkey's warned of a looming civil war and its troops are standing by for orders to intervene and often now has details from istanbul. with the bloody status quo in the syrian

crisis maintained for months she is a growing and violence may start spreading beyond the country's borders especially with his close neighbor turkey once a close friends too but now a harsh critic of damascus on. syria's first priority should be to listen to its people and meet their demands not to denounce others sort of massacring its people we should listen to them through clear glue is a harsh critic himself but he's criticizing the turkish government and camera is on the side with the free syrian army and the syrian national council and military and diplomatic forces aimed at overthrowing the regime of bashar al assad it supports a buffer zone and a humanitarian corridor which some fear could bring turkish troops to syrian soil what does that mean according to international law it means aggression against a country it means war but any intervention would be different from the one in

libya since russia and china have made it clear new or no fly zone resolutions which means the role of regional players like turkey increases dramatically but for new claims and korea's behavior is irresponsible and risky it has larger implications beyond the bilateral context of turkey syria as such the situation in syria must be handled with great care by all powers and unfortunately i don't see that cash. especially the part of our government or hand works with a middle eastern studies center based in and kyra it's sponsored by the turkish foreign ministry to help shape policy and its opinion on syria it's clear syria is killing people or not always that's clear no. but he has objectively information

what is going on in syria the center specialists haven't been to serious rover yeah it means the picture they paint for officials and camera isn't likely to be an accurate one the technology change you know when you look at the photographs or the videos coming from these governorates you can easily see that there is something going on with this issue these reviews are often question of will so it's easy to be misled and get a false picture of what's really happening but that doesn't stop researchers from coming to firm conclusions in military operations this is the last option which turkey does not want to see but this is an option it may have declared it doesn't work a military solution to the syrian crisis but turkey hasn't ruled it out either plain and if again if there is massive migration from its troubled neighbor turkey says it will have to protect its own people and officially and currencies it wants peace and stability in the region its troops are ready just kilometers from the border

with syria. r.t. turkey. but coming to you live from the heart of moscow and still ahead for you this hour scouting for suspects. i think is mostly the stereotype i think of stereotype but you see me try to put a lot of color skin on with me just for you know well it's just a lot to do with why police in britain are under fire for stopping and searching youths who they deem suspicious. ten minutes past the hour here today marks a decade since the first prisoners were sent to america's most notorious prison in cuba of course that one ton of obey and after ten years now the detention center remains on the wrong side of the law with its harsh interrogation processes use of torture but rock obama promised to close it but instead the president has now signed a new law authorizing the indefinite detention of terror suspects christine for our thoughts promise is me i've said repeatedly but i'm going to close guantanamo and i

will follow through on that promise is broken it is ministration policy to try to close guantanamo we have certainly run into opposition if the problem is he doesn't have a plan to do that or at least what to do with terror suspects they are suspects like moroc or not captured in pakistan in two thousand and one while working for an ngo that helped young people get off drugs he was sent to guantanamo and tortured for five years. after a couple things got the couple couple people got killed in front of me some of them got just keep on his head through until he died and so the other one who was hanging on saying until he was forced to confess he was a member of al qaeda and he told them time and time again he was not was freezing called was doing with. no clothes on so i was hanging there for many days

when the interrogator came he pulled me back down and. i was going to sign almost every time when i said no he just made like this and called the wake up it's a stories like this that draw fears condemnation even from within north america when one of the most powerful that we're democracies is behaving with promoting you know illegal practices and abusing human rights that undermines the cause of human rights everywhere on the planet it is this hypocrisy that others say leads us enemies to more action not less i think the number one recruiting tool for zawahiri and bin laden before he was killed was gone paula and colonel morris davis former prosecutor and one ton of obey resigned after being ordered to use information obtained during torture he said he was hopeful things would change under president obama he didn't just embrace the bush policies he kissed him on the lips and ran with them many believe the prospect of closing guantanamo bay will now be much more

difficult thanks to the passage of the national defense authorization act by congress it was signed into law by president obama on december thirty first now within our bill provisions that allow the military to indefinitely detain anyone it considers to be a terrorism suspect without charge or trial and with this increased leniency no doubt increased space to hold those prisoners will be needed but the end clearly you know there's a major roadblock in this passage really was the death knell for attempts to close guantanamo and i think we're stuck with president obama will forever be known as the president who signed indefinite detention without charge or trial into law even applying it to american citizens no person and military uniform ever volunteer the rooms are less than to the military for the purpose of taking action against american citizens it's to protect american citizens protecting american citizens the reason given for guantanamo bay in the first place but ten years later

it is having the opposite effect still the once temporary solution now looking more and more like a permanent fixture in washington christine for south r.t. . marty comes to you live from moscow a u.s. drone attack has killed at least four islamic militants in pakistan the missiles which struck late last night hit an insurgent compound in north waziristan just just on the afghan border this comes just two months after an american air strike killed two dozen pakistani troops out into the already tense relationship between washington and islamabad the white house said that november attack was an error in pakistan rejected the findings saying the strike was deliberate for more on this we can talk to chris would say senior reporter at the bureau of investigative journalism at the city university in london i thank you for coming on the program today is all about it has warned did warn in december that it will shoot down any u.s. drones that intrude its airspace as part of its new defense policy now we see in

this latest drone attack is it possible we can expect a reaction from pakistan. i think we have to assume that. the complicit or implicit involvement of the pakistani government the u.s. and pakistan has been discussing behind the scenes for some weeks now revolving these drone strike policy in pakistan and i think it's inconceivable that those drones were operating and were staring us in the right with the approval of the pakistani government. pakistan's military has publicly rebuked the country's prime minister after he actually criticized the military in an interview is there any coincidence do you think the timing of these new u.s. attacks and the breakdown in relations between the military and the government. i think relations remain for or between pakistan military and government i think the drone strike issue here is a separate warm been significant leaks both in islam and in islam about in

washington and recent days about a new do you get an interim drone strikes and i think that's what reflects whether there's a link between parents and the stresses in islam about between government and military are not true or now according to your bureau all the investigative journalism could have been more than one hundred civilian deaths from drones in two thousand and eleven alone is it possible that in just all be simply written off as just out of collateral damage in a city of war. see any civilian deaths of collateral damage and just to make the point that syria continues to claim that it hasn't killed a single civilian in pakistan since two thousand and ten the bureau's research on this shows quite the opposite and we got him into the minimum of fifty three civilians were killed in pakistan where you were in the first few. years when i was on the twenty six it is fair to say it was you that civilians do get killed in war

the question here is is. war in the tribal areas of pakistan and what kind of does it have to actually carry these drone strikes when you when you talk about the tribal areas regard to one of your latest articles as we know the cia's attacks have resumed in these pakistani tribal areas do you think pakistan has forgiven the u.s. for its mistakes so how much has the funding there's a lot about received in washington played a part in this decision there are some that might seem incredulous as to how much more patients will pakistan to have to continue allowing he continued turning a deaf ear to these drone bombings. i mean obviously the united states has a very deep financial relationship with pakistan in particular with pakistan's military and we're talking about billions of dollars a year being spent on pakistan's military by the us going back almost a decade there so yes that money is important to pakistan and i think that's an

important aspect of leverage for the u.s. drone strikes some of these drone strikes are obviously in the interest of pakistan for example when pakistan taliban leaders are killed or when al qaida leaders are killed both of those organizations represent a threat to the pakistan state and i think pakistan is generally not happy when that happens the problem is of course when either civilians are killed which is we believe happens fairly frequently or with other militant organizations with which pakistan itself is friendly come under attack and that places pakistan at a significant. all goodness really with with militant organizations within its own borders i wish we had more time for this our chris woods a senior reporter of investigative journalism many thanks for coming on the program . i let's go to the r.t. was up it for you or some other headlines more around the world in brief first to the iranian capital that of terror on where one of the country's nuclear scientists is being killed by a car bomb mostafa reportedly supervised that apartment of the once

a year radium enrichment plant the authorities have pointed the finger at israel mother sharon is the fourth scientist to be killed in iran since two thousand and ten almost two years ago another physicist linked to the country's nuclear program also died in a similar explosion. nigeria's government has warned that the country's national fuel strike could lead to anarchy as demonstrations entered their third day nine people have been killed since monday what has become the longest nationwide strike in nigeria's history it comes after the government ended a popular fuel subsidy leading to an increasing gas and transportation costs all throughout the nation unions have vowed to keep up the indefinite strike until the subsidy is restored. and in the united states occupy wall street protesters have moved back into new york's zuccotti park after the barricades were lifted this comes after civil liberties groups sent letters to the city saying the barriers

broke the zoning laws the blockades were put in place after demonstrators were evicted from the area two months ago the occupy movement as we mark by accusations of police brutality since it began last september. well as british police have been accused of crossing the line when it comes to upholding law and order by stopping and searching people that they deem to be in any way suspicious those who are most often considered to be up to no good by orth already believe there's one reason behind it skin color is our bennett reports i this is supposed to prevent terrorism police in britain have free rein to stop and search anyone they deem suspicious but what constitutes suspicious he's hugely controversial stopped a young black men and police still can't escape accusations of racism even from inside parliament. police will argue that it's because the people are typically

looking for comfort sick so she's going to make backgrounds that starts to look very much like racial profiling is certainly true that these people are often massively disproportionately stopped all the boys at this youth club in north london have been stopped and searched some on several occasions all for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and they say for having the wrong skin color. or stop because they were not tough because this. was when they stopped us to explain . this topic because big news in recent attacks attacks to say that there was this big issue stopping the car. and the reality was the kid. who was in the car i think is mostly the stereotyping the stereotype that if he made traction or the color like the color scheme to come with me just for you know well it just seems large and it was the way it was stabbings of frequent in this part of london carte blanche for police to stop and search whoever they want they can be in public

sometimes physical poorly explained and often humiliating some brass in those in the middle of the streets off on the highly embarrassing was just they were busting their cars because i heard on the bus. i don't know when the law came into force in two thousand and one police didn't even need a reason to stop and search europe finally ruled this illegal early last year forcing concessions from the government since then stop and searches have decreased by ninety percent but the problem still exists in theory there are strict limitations to stop and search the powers can only be used in a specific area fourteen days before he was twenty eight but in practice all that means nothing if the powers can simply be renewed on expiring which is why the whole of london has been a stop and search zone for the last ten years police now don't even need to record the. name any injury they suffer all the outcome of the search the government says

it will reduce paperwork but it leaves it wide open for a peek targeting and physical abuse kyle runs the u.s. and he too has been stopped repeatedly suspects are entitled to a receipt but few know this and kyle says police are often reluctant to make any record most of them search it's. kind of like trying refused to give to sleep. and they say i've heard excuses we don't have no we have to go to the station to get it and if i still start to argue the case someone i don't know how to give me a form in the end of it so but if they do target young people police used to have similar powers in the one nine hundred eighty s. but they were scrapped after racial targeting provoked massive riots some saw the riots as history repeating itself but one of the things that caused the displaced by the place to. stop an. honest answer place.

and young people and the probably institutionally racist as well. eighty five percent of writers cited anger of police is their reason for violence in a recent study by the guardian newspaper a fact the government can no longer ignore it's prompted home secretary theresa may to launch a review of how stop and search powers east i've given it r.t. london. you are up to date on the hard news here on our t.v. now time for the. business update next. welcome to business russia's big sell off of state assets has been postponed according to comments from the country's deputy prime minister igor searchin says they won't get a fair price for firms like transnet and. in the current world economic turmoil the privatization will be put off for up to three years according to government sources quoted by newspaper loveless of all it from buying things markets will understand

the move. but there were certainly hopes in the market there would be significant impetus to privatisation this year but my sense was that certainly there was no strong expectation that a word pro see with aggressive privatizations ahead of the presidential elections and if anything if there weren't to be a significant pipeline of privatizations coming up you could also have a negative effect of some sort. of the market in terms of the saturation of the supply negatively affecting the price dynamic but currently we clearly see that the market conditions are challenging that the global scene is question and this is something that makes. the sale of strategic assets somewhat more problematic. a little process now which is losing yesterday's gains between gains and losses

throughout the day tension has been boosting the price but news that germany's economy contributed in the fourth quarter has brought fears that crude demand will fall. europe is edged into the road losing the morning's roys food and energy sectors are tugging downwards pharmaceuticals are also suffering unilever is losing over two percent after a broken down grade investors are also nervous ahead of the results of a big german. russian markets opened the day in the river and they haven't advanced much since the r.t.s. is down almost a percent to my six hundred percent lower this hour. now the biggest movers on the my six today we call is weighing on energy majors although there's probably is retreating from earlier losses the company supplies to europe jumped nine percent in twenty eleven. is enjoying gains it's reported a forty two percent increase in earnings for twenty eleven over the results were lower than the company expected and after is among the main gainers reports the

lawyer. plans to increase the. shares in the russian car make it to fifty percent in the first quarter. that news from western economies has continued to worsen in the new year credit agency fitch has reportedly encouraged the european central bank to step up purchases of troubled government forms to prevent the single currency collapsing over reuter and financial advisor patrick young says throwing more problem at the problem more money at the problem excuse me just won't help the european union simply has not acknowledged the extent to which they spend all of the money that's in their piggy bank and more now they're trying to raise more money and ultimately they look like an alcoholic i mean they're looking for yet another bottle of vodka as they struggle to avoid driving it really is a major potential catastrophe that they feel to get their hands on solving the struggle or even trying to look as if they're seriously solving the struggle. those who are the business news or be back in about fifty five minutes for financial news

here in ulti. when clinton comfortable question leads to a grave accusation the world who is more xeno fogging. the president who isn't supposed to hide anything. or it's someone asking him why do you make

a secret out but when the powers to be suppress the voice of those who think different culture when you go experiencing very serious problems often the saakashvili government came to power in two thousand and three but it was a book that was when the problems began piling up. interviews were now off limits to our journalists they were often beason up and humiliated in public and one of the attempt to protect property puts life in real danger is that we have been deprived of the only means of earning a living i have gone to the original sit all the papers. got them little rice the ownership rights on the basis of cocos freedom becomes just a stage prop. if .

you. without a lot from moscow your headlines now now the syrian president claims that he's still in control and or soon crush branded as a foreign funded insurgency but international pressure on assad to step down is mounting as turkey leads calls for intervention and gears up its forces. ten years on america's infamous prison in guantanamo bay is still open with many inmates alleging abuse and torture but now a debate rages over whether barack obama.