the rule is being put on hold according to a new report more details in the business program later on. around the clock around the world this is r.t. live in moscow at least eleven people have reportedly been killed by security forces across syria on wednesday it's been confirmed that a french television journalist died in a rocket explosion the first time a former reporter has been killed in syria since the uprising began in march this is bashar al assad has spoken to supporters in damascus for the second time in twenty four hours reiterating his dismissal of calls to step down journalists as he has the latest from the syrian capital. some reports the figure is that hundreds of thousands of people who attended at least many tens of thousands of people there and of course. addressed the crowd amongst the people there was

a huge jump forward of the people towards the president in his speech he mentioned that he very much wanted to be amongst the people and there were many young people that there was a large mix of different ethnic religious backgrounds of course the syrian government has been accused by media organizations and others being unfair regime because it is led by. a religious minority inside syria. today so many different religious and ethnic groups of people represented including so means kristie. meaning many different people so that if there was really an impressive actually show of unity amongst the syrian people from all different walks of life one of the five things that people seem very keen to express here is that outrage in particular. and that.

news channels of which is of course funded by qatar like. they are accused of fabricating. news reports of what is happening inside the country and they also express a lot of anger so was the u.s. president barack obama for president sarkozy who is supporting the destabilization of our country i think they see this countries such as russia who have been much more neutral during this conflict condemning all sides. for any violence so that nations like russia and china is viewed much more favorably by a lot of the people that i have come across. still ahead this hour an r.t. scouting for suspects. we're stereotyping the stereotype that if you may try to change. the color skin. just for you know well let's just.

loosen britain around the fire stop. a suspicious. stories to come for you but first iran's top nuclear scientist has been killed in a car bombing in the capital tehran. russia reportedly supervised a department at the natanz uranium enrichment plant if thought is a point the finger at israel and the us. is the fourth scientists to be killed in iran since two thousand and ten almost two years ago another physicist linked to the country's nuclear program died in a similar explosion while the us is already slapped around with more financial and oil sanctions plans to follow suit but russia has warned that europe will lose if it follows in america's footsteps of tomorrow someone from the universal peace federation says that a conflict a regional conflict is a real possibility. after causing it of actually assassinations against nuclear

scientists inside iran and this is a to my own understanding maybe the fourth as a nation inside the head on or around i mean inside iran this will lead to an example of how the west actually and the u.s. specifically through the mossad or through the cia will always engineer or handle such as us nations inside iran well i'm predicting there's a certain plan or an agenda by the west and israel will not engineer it will not the executive that it could be the brits and the u.s. but this will benefit there's a need for sure and the threats actually behind this shall lead to a regional or an international war in the region which is there was going up in case tension grows time by time and accidents actually consecutively they grow like a snowball as if in the in the gulf region so this will. eventually outlawed all of you know escalate the situation inside the gulf and specifically in there was going to. there's no return to our top story and syria and we'll now

discuss the latest developments there in the country with professor of international relations mark almond joining me live from oxford in fact not far from london. professor now sadly claims that he has the support of the people and with the size of the rally we saw today that certainly appears to be the case in his stronghold of damascus but what about the rest of the country. well the problem for president assad is that the main centers of resistance to him are based around the borders and that also however is a sign of the limitations on the support for an armed insurrection against him that it really depends upon getting money weapons and even perhaps personnel across the border from lebanon and turkey and some extent from jordan so we have a kind of standoff president assad has a lot of support the armed opposition has support we don't really know what ordinary people feel but i think one of the things that president assad is trying

to do is to say do you want to see me in style civil war and chaos all you do want to be some sort of happened in iraq a few years ago and that's quite a powerful argument for people not necessary to be diehard supporters but certainly not to want to see themselves die in a brutal civil conflict that could spiral out of control so is it likely that we could see a similar scenario developing. well i think the problem from the point of view of the supporters of the opposition is that big cities as you say like damascus and aleppo have seen bigger demonstrations by for for a sad than have been able to be staged against him in the centers of opposition like homs and hama the big centers of muslim brotherhood they may be intimidated by the police and the army. in effect civil civilian oppositions really been silenced both by the side supporters but also by the term tools insurrection violence even some extent terrorism by the more militant opposition and that i think is a big problem for the future of syria because it means that there isn't really

there are a compromise there are people who say we would like to see peaceful evolution and people say we will fight to defend ourselves to the end but people say the only way to change the system is by using force more force what about the way he's handling this you're talking about forces and he's promised his supporters that victory against the so-called terrorist threat will come soon meaning of course extreme force more death in the country that actually contradict his pledge to the arab league to end violence. well it's i think the problem is that it does take two sides to fight we in some ways has shown so much more resilient than perhaps many of his critics from the western countries have feared or hoped but on the heels hand the opposition has in a sense i think may have shot itself in its foot because by attacking a lot of ordinary police small ordinary security personnel who are themselves very often not from the privileged elite or the alawite group that is seen to be central to assad's regime you must make a lot of those people have their relatives and friends say well we can't really

abandon the regime because we ourselves be victims of its enemies so sometimes an armed insurrection may seem to be a way to topple the regime but it may or strength and support for it by its own instrument of violence and i think we have to see that there's violence here on both sides and that's left i'm afraid moderate center ground very heavily skewed. we did talk about that possible parallel with the scenario of libya there in libya the international community was pretty the size it wasn't what to do the u.n. resolution and then the ensuing nato action but it seems that the international community really don't know what to do over syria obviously the arab league trying to do what it feels it has to do but do you think we could see some sort of u.n. intervention or is there really a loss that moment of the policy of what to do over syria here i think a u.n. intervention authorized postscripts council highly unlikely it seems very unlikely that russia and china would agree to it as they in

a sense agreed to the libyan intervention by not vetoing it the maybe a nato intervention believing that has high risk we've been hearing about the growing tension with iran we shouldn't forget the growing tension inside iraq between shiites and sunnis between for americans and people dissolution with america so a conflict with syria launched by nato perhaps from turkey from the mediterranean could easily become a wider regional war and there's already. terrible the dangerous situation emerging in the gulf with iran and as i say the situation in iraq is extremely unstable so i think the reason for a severe risk of that but i'm not sure necessarily that it would need lead to a neat and clean solution. think it sad will step down prefer to do that rather than see what happened with gadhafi. final problem one problem is precisely because of what happened to gadhafi and his men and most of his sons and some of his supporters this makes it very difficult for assad to find

a graceful way out because already he's been accused by the opposition but also by the government of turkey for instance of genocide and of crimes against humanity so he doesn't really have anywhere to go and i think this being a great problem with the use of the international criminal tribunals the use of charges of race we acquired like genocide it makes it very difficult for people to compromise because in the end if they're going to be executed for crimes or sent to prison for a slower they might as well try to fight to hold on to power and remember as i say there are a lot of people down the chain of command who fear that even if assad might be able to find refuge they couldn't and so that's why i think the situation looks at spiraling towards civil war certainly towards continued conflict so long as the armed resistance has secured bases outside syria could attack across the border have so long as the regime controls the big cities there's no grounds really for compromise or for peace life from oxford professor of international relations mark almond thank you very much indeed for your thoughts thank you. but today marks ten

years since the first prisoners were sent to america's most notorious prison in cuba guantanamo bay and after a decade the detention center remains on the wrong side of the law with its harsh interrogation process is and use of torture record by a promise to close it but instead the president has now signed a new law authorizing the indefinite detention of terror suspects christine has more. promises made 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 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 helps young people get off drugs he was sent to guantanamo and tortured for five years. after i had seen a couple things got the couple

a couple of people got killed and some of them got just keep on his head through until he died. he 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 close prison call it was during winter. and i had no clothes on so i was hanging there for many days. came he pulled me back down. and. going to sign on every time when i said no he just made like this and. it's 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 and 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. and colonel morris davis former prosecutor and guantanamo bay 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 want. ana mowbray 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 but we needed at the end clearly you know there's a major roadblock in this passage really was the death knell for attempts to close guantanamo and now 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 roser lesson on 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 go in tandem obey him 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 sound r t. well we are always interested to know what you think on this and today we're asking when do you believe. we'll finally close what a voice your opinion would have to do is go to our website. and participate in all places to global results that we can see the fifty nine percent of you who

responded so far believe that the u.s. has no interest in shutting it down that's in the quarter a convincing get my will be shot when the us can no longer afford to run it something it will only happen when washington builds a new prison somewhere else and just two percent think that all terms will have to be free to blow and you have to say cast your vote at all to dot com and while you're online also check out the rest of our website we've got plenty of stories for you including. an anonymous group famous for fueling protests across the globe is calling for the entire u.s. nation to rise up against a controversial national defense act protect the american constitution. also online for the moment money well spent russia's defense ministry pays one million dollars to create its own computer games to promote pictures of them among those stores available at all t.v. dot com.

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 on the afghan border this comes just two months after an american air strike killed two dozen pakistani troops adding to the already tense relationship between washington and is a memo that the white house said the november attack was an error but pakistan rejected the families saying the strike was deliberate meanwhile pakistan's prime minister has fired his defense secretary as tensions between the government and the military grow chris woods a senior reporter at the bureau of investigative journalism at city university in london says islamabad's reliance on american aid means it will continue to tolerate drone attacks. i think relations remain fraught between pakistan military and government i think the drone strike issue here is

a separate one been significantly. about and washington. is about a new good moment on drone strikes and i think that's what reflects 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 u.s. going back almost a decade now so yes that money is important to pakistan and i think that's an important aspect of leverage for the u.s. drone strikes continues to claim that it hasn't killed a single civilian in pakistan since back in may two thousand and ten euros research on the shows quite the opposite we've got a minimum of fifty three civilians were killed in pakistan where you are still in the last few. years homeless one hundred twenty six it is fair to say i would say that civilians do get killed or the question here is. war in the tribal

areas of pakistan and what kind of authority does it have to actually carry out these drone strikes and up to ninety minute. past the hour in the russian capital time to update you on our main news stories from around the world now in our world update and first to nigeria the government has warned that the nation's fuel strike could lead to anarchy demonstrations and the nine people have been killed since monday has become the longest nationwide strike in my history it comes out of the government and a popular fuel subsidy leading to an increase in gas and transportation costs the nation unions about to keep up the indefinite strike until the subsidy is restored . in the u.s. occupy wall street protesters of move back into new york's zuccotti park after barricades were lifted this comes after civil liberties groups sent letters to the city say the barriers broke zoning laws ok to put in place after demonstrators were victims from the area two months ago the occupy movement has been marred by

accusations of police brutality since it began last september. also the world update this could be italian prime minister says his country no longer poses a threat of contagion to the rest of the euro zone painful but vital reforms was met with the german chancellor angela merkel he gave praise to italy's efforts at imposing austerity measures to avert a debt disaster. of protests breaking out in italy if it's reforms will not acknowledge successful he's agreed on a new tax on financial transactions pushed by merkel but only if it's applied to the entire european union this comes as the he struggles to contain its debt crisis with many states believed to be back in session. british police have been accused of crossing the line when it comes to upholding law and order by stopping and searching people they do in any way suspicious those are most often considered to be up to no good by authorities believe there is one

reason behind it skin color. either but it reports. this is supposed to prevent terrorism police in britain have free rein to stop and search anyone they deem suspicious but what constitutes suspicious is hugely controversial no 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 and it's certainly true that these people are often massively disproportionately stopped all the boys in 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 when the type of crime. was when they stopped us to explain it was.

i decide to cause big news in recent attacks attacks to say that there was this big issue stopping the car. and the reality was because it was in the car i think it was mostly the people of stereotyping the stereotype that if we may try to change it a lot of politicking going on with it just for you know well it just wasn't jobs 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 so impressive it was in the middle of the streets off on the person i was just they were busting their cars because of the bus. about 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 problems still exist in theory there are strict limitations to stop and search the power is going to 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 so police now don't even need to record the suspect. name any injury they suffer all the outcome of a search the government says it'll reduce paperwork but it leaves it wide open for a peek targeting and physical abuse kyle runs the use and he to use 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 often search it's. kind of like crime refused to give to sleep i only 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 will know part of your form in the end of it but if you 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 august riots as history repeating itself one of the things of course that was a nice thing by the place to. stop and. understand place certainly institutionally against young people and the probably institutionally racist as well. eighty five percent of writers cited anger of police as their reason for violence in a recent study by the guardian newspaper a fact the government can no longer ignore its prompted home secretary theresa may to launch a review of how stop and search powers they used are when it r.t.

london i'll be back with a summary of our main news stories for in four minutes from now meantime daniel is next with. welcome to business russia's big selloff of state as it has been postponed according to comments from the country's deputy prime minister. says they won't get a fair price for firms like transit if drew in the current world economic turmoil the privatization will be put off for three years according to government sources quoted by a newspaper here a slew of lists of all it from deutsche bank thinks 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. there's been a new flare up in the gas dispute between russia and ukraine kiev says it will boil a twenty seven billion cubic meters of gas this year despite the fact fifty two billion has been agreed in the contract but the head of russia's any joint gazprom warns ukraine must pay the full amount agreed. ukraine made this decision without any consultation with russia if they want to make any changes to the contract they should agree them six months in advance if ukraine breaks the conditions of the contract russia will act according to the existing agreement.

let's check out the stock markets now the e.u. closed in the red food food and then tugging downwards pharmaceuticals also suffered unilever lost over three percent after a broker downgrade the royal tension has hurt energy firms show lost three percent in london. and russia's bourses closed lower for the second day in a row following problems in other markets the r.t.s. lost over one percent or more six finished almost point eight percent in the red. another biggest movers almost six today we call was weighing on energy majors gazprom love point that's old news ukraine wants to take less gas than agreed in their contract but discount retailer magnet jumped it reported a forty two percent increase in earnings for twenty eleven and afterwards finished among the main gamers on reports the brand a lawyer plans to increase its share in the russian call make it to fifty percent in the first quarter of this year. that's the business news the headlines are next

on r.t. . now it's not about spilling blood if it's the war of the barricades from one side

and fears blockade from the other. invisible border it has cut people from the land for twelve years. the conflict that divided serbia into two hostile parts is still not over.

to. from the russian capital this is our top stories now the syrian president claims he's still in control. of insurgency but international pressure on assad to step down is mounting as more civilian deaths are reported across the country. was killed in a wrong no one has yet claimed responsibility is pointing the finger at israel and the u.s. the scientists working on the country's atomic program.