rule one the russian equity markets following the s. and p. downgrade of major european economies the details in twenty minutes. international news and comment twenty four hours a day your watching r.t. but they were putin has published a blueprint of what he says is needed to move russia forward from tackling poverty and corruption to fostering a more civil society russia's prime minister is trying for a third term as president this year parties are ridiculous as the details. well in a lot of ways this was a statement which was directed there's a response to the existence of statements made by the opposition leaders during the protests in which it has pointed out that russia has already gone through an abrupt and very drastic change a very similar to a revolution during the collapse of the soviet union and that brought the country

down into decline essentially into shambles and it took a very long time to get out of the dire situation but russia has succeeded in doing that as with which and in fact the education levels went up employment has also risen over the past fifteen years the overall it standards of living for eighty percent of russians have increased there's also the emergence of the middle class says it's dull comprises up to thirty percent off the population in russia where is during the soviet times that number was significant the smaller so let me put it has borne essentially people in his statement to be wary of that of the statements in slogans of which sound very lucrative may sound very lucrative by the opposition leaders but he did mention that it's such a such an abrupt change in the governmental system may have diarrhea effects on the country and he did talk at length about this situation the very much improved situation which the country finds itself right now but of course he also mentioned that some some problems do remain on the table there is the very well known problem

of corruption there's also a lack of civil society overall in the mindset of people also unfortunately from ten to eleven percent of russian population still live below the poverty line that is also something that needs to be taken care of and of course the country's dependence on natural resources oil and gas something which needs to be slowly taken step away from there's of course the progress into the high tech world in creating more jobs and not sphere also talks more about creating civil society and contributing more to charity and of course he'll see talked about russia a becoming a major as being a major player on the global political arena. russia has served as a bridge between the east and the west for centuries russia has not experienced in that area and of course also is a major contributor to g. eight g. twenty and the united nations and the role of these are going to say since it is something which also should be taken into account and he also basically underlined

this statement by saying that the country has to come out of the post. that that period is over and not just for russia but for the world as a whole so more global and a new approach to the situation not just in the country but also in the entire world should be taken where you can read was about a man who had to say in his full article which is online now it. syria's president has a granted amnesty to prisoners for what he says are crimes committed during ten months of deadly anti-government protests the amnesty also applies to the desert is tens of thousands of people have been detained over the past year but a sara furth reports it's unclear whether it will be enough to stop the continuing conflict. brings the people leave the syrian prison. family and friends.

prisoners. these are the prisoners they've been selected for. you can see the signing on this is being overseen by the arab league. this is part of the amnesty. president but of course for everyone who's not being released from detention questions. actually why they were detained in the first place. i've been in prison for four months i was accused of weakening national security i didn't protest they brought me here by mistake. is a good step i just hope it includes everyone. i had some weapons i had inherited from my grandfather and was accused of bearing illegal weapons i've been here three months when people heard about the amnesty they were

ecstatic they never thought this could happen. here in the state in the. military intervention in syria if the. u.n. general secretary. president and the bloodshed. in the arab world. statements were still flaming in a highly volatile situation the amnesty shows that syria is trying to find a political solution rather than a security solution and that the country is succeeding in implementing the plan agreed by the arab league. is being little more than a gesture. to me when all political prisoners are number one the rest said since the beginning of the crisis have been released then the amnesty will have been. but the answer is c. does not consider this the start of dialogue but you know if your family just is

welcome or you can just be freed over the coming days but outside the prison walls people in the country remain trapped in a situation of escalating violence in which they father seems to. serve. enough just plain dependant journalists there's a feeling in the sense the amnesty means president assad is submitting to foreign pressure. it's being received in a kind of mixed way by the syrian syrian people of course these people they were by no means just peaceful protesters according to the syrian government they were in fact wired they were people who had set things on fire destroyed many government buildings in these kinds of thing the reaction is very much seen as though the president is being very generous he is releasing more people despite that the situation in some parts of the country is still very tense there are concerns among

some sections of the syrian population that among the many people who are being released there will be some criminal elements who will slip through the net people understand that the president is under a lot of pressure especially international pressure to respond to calls to release these prisoners but the same time there is very much a concern that it could be a dangerous move. ahead this hour the thousands of british children caught in the cold how campaign is trying to turn around the lives of growing numbers of poverty stricken families. back to work somewhere fragments of the failed russian production have been on its way to mars by now finally performed from orbit with more details ahead. america's mainstream media is being accused of playing with fire for playing up the prospect of war between iran and the west it's

a sensitive time with the military standoff in the strait of hormuz and looming sanctions over iran's nuclear program but this guy actually can reports abuse in the states or repeatedly hearing how war is virtually inescapable. torito options bomb iran or let iran get the bomb with tension between iran and the west as high as ever a host of hardline speakers on u.s. mainstream media seem to be pushing the audience to believe that war is inevitable and the better way to prevent iran from getting nuclear weapons is to attack its nuclear weapons program directly although experts say war with iran is far from being inevitable i don't think that we are very get that is to say at the precipice the media are already preparing the grounds for it some by misinforming the public the new york times wrote that the international atomic energy agency said iran's nuclear program has a military objective but that's not what the i.a.e.a.

reported the watchdog said iran might have the technology to develop a nuclear weapon if it wants to or here's another public misconception due to a lack of information it would be saying to the iranians you to open up those facilities you begin to dismantle them and make them available to the inspectors or we will degrade those facilities through air strikes in fact i ease spector's have already been in the country monitoring iran's nuclear facilities when you american people here information over and over again and sometimes it is often the subtle subtleties you are not providing the context of the i report or not putting in some of the doubts back in two thousand to two thousand and three about the iraqi w m d programs that kind of slanting of the news does have the effect of altering how the american public use in issues the u.s. mainstream media have proved to be cheerleaders for war jeff cohen was a senior producer of a popular t.v. show before the iraq invasion he says they were under pressure from their bosses to

root for because their owners benefited from it it was a constant pressure campaign. to make sure that the prole invasion voice was dominant jeff cohen says not much has changed in u.s. mainstream journalism since the iraq invasion there's no doubt that mainstream media are crucial in this idea of settling this idea that the u.s. is going to be on a per actual war media analysts say says the intervention in libya u.s. media have been instrumental in making americans get used to the idea that washington will continue to intervene militarily in foreign affairs i worked at newsweek and as goes a.p. and other major u.s. news organizations and the and what i saw especially in places like newsweek was this idea that the media was actually part of the establishment that it was it was it was that the american people were to be guided more than even informed it seems

most american media are so used to talking wars that went after a decade of the inconclusive war in afghanistan the white house announced the necessity to negotiate with the taliban you have to have a political solution at some point the message and the words political solution came out a somewhat alien peace talks with the taliban it's come to this tell us more about these proposed peace talks and that may sound a little weird to some of our viewers it seems that words political solution don't belong in the u.s. media they can be larry two main reasons one moring and second some very powerful people are behind a kind of trigger happy pro-war journalism too many times in history the media did the bidding of war profiteers we can go back more than a hundred years and look at how the american public was primed for war with spain over cuba media tycoon william randolph hearst falsely hyped up the story that the spanish sunk on american ships when in fact it's something because of

a coal bunker explosion it was then that hearst told his illustrator in havana. you furnish the pictures and i'll furnish the war more than a hundred years on the phrase still found relevant but it doesn't have to be that way and some argue political solution although not popular words in the media vocabulary is better than war and death i'm going to check our reporting from washington r.t. . because it stone is on the verge of a new political chapter official results show that three parties are heading into the lower house of parliament until now the president's group held all the seats but has come away with a huge majority election was brought forward off the parliament was dissolved last autumn when the photos last month's deadly clashes between police and striking oil workers were one of the reports. this elections were never expected to produce any surprises and in fact they did and the biggest surprise of all was the fact that they were indeed held it was. himself who last fall dissolved the country's

parliament reach a point consisted exclusively of his own supporters and called for that snap elections. has been in power and for twenty two years just last year his security at the now there five year a presidential term with more than ninety five percent of the vote now he's nor party also won these elections with an overwhelming majority and retain control over the lower chamber of parliament but this time around it has some very modest opposition the main reason why i. want to have this elections in the first place was he's declared intention to make the country's political system a little bit more representative a little bit more democratic and this time around the elections were held on to new rules guaranteed a second place to party at least two seats in the parliament regardless of whether or not it clears this seven percent tree. buyers opponents say that it is just

magic change that was important problem to bite he's in these in this over what happened in arab countries and he's attempt to sort of preemptively blind a neat public discontent over it because i sense a political system that to me and rising to future all. these elections were tests of confidence for himself especially following december clashes between protesters and the police in the west of the country that had seventeen people killed and more than a hundred injured and judging by the very high turnout and the results on the. past this. well more news twenty four hours a day at dot com as does some of what's on law and at the moment is ready agents in disguise the story of how mossad intelligence officers opposing the cia agents to recruit and train iranian terrorists to attack terror on. the post-mortem poke a new if i die on the case and on facebook that it seems to submit their final

status update the twenty first century twist on her deathbed confession got the details of how to dot com supplanting home video on you tube. he. download the official altie application. called talk from the top story. on the go. video on demand. old girls.

are now in the palm of your. question on the dot com thousands over british families are feeling the chill stuck below the poverty line and unable to meet soaring energy bills and it's having an impact on the next generation who slip through the government for heating handouts as there are smith reports from london. this is something that single mother of four julie henry can't afford to do very often boiling the kettle for tea hers is one of eight hundred thousand families in the u.k. in fuel poverty struggling to pay for heating and electricity in the last three years she says her bill has doubled and it's a constant juggling act the more go to the bill and for food and school uniform than you don't have not into safe so that's the difficult bit of what children have

to eat for them have to eat and their school uniform i have to buy and on top of that the electricity use and the lie bill i try to cut down so many. is no work in. the warm home discount is a government scheme aimed at helping low income families heat their houses adequately in the winter but charity save the children says energy companies aren't contributing enough to the fund meaning only three percent of families are getting the help they need with disastrous social consequences growing up in a cold. has a really profound impact on children in terms of physical terms in terms of general . in direct effects in terms of educational time and. energy u.k. which represents gas and electricity companies in the media refused to give an interview but they did issue this statement following consultation with the government

decided who will benefit from core funding under the new home discount scheme and those customers will get an automatic discount of their electricity bill without needing to apply for it save the children says that's not good enough currently only pensioners automatically benefit from the warm home discount scheme and others must deploy which charities say is very complicated the scheme is underfunded every year energy bills take up and up additionally and crucially poor families often pays you go to system for their electricity and gas which works out more expensive than paying monthly a poverty premium in action. meanwhile julie sees first hand the other price of being poor if she can only afford to heat her house for two hours a day her children's school wonder they go jump out to put on and socks on the silken arsole would go to places to call and then go to bed late and where governor

late and i don't concentrate my twosome was in big trouble or the time too many detention tired sin is knowledge of the play call. save the children says it will carry on lobbying the government to help poor families need and julie henry and her children will go on fearing that the next energy bill they receive will be the one that drives them into debt laura smith london. now to some other headlines from around the world this hour the violence has erupted between rival militia groups in the libyan city of gharyan leaving at least three people dead and around fifty injured they reportedly used machine guns and rockets in the weekend shootouts fighting began when the local military council demanded the tribe one hundred members accused of aiding colonel gadhafi into the government's attempts to broker a cease fire in the area have failed to take hold. the main years leaders have

called a crisis meeting following a fourth day of violent protests against austerity cuts for the thousand demonstrators clashed with police and caressed some hurling stones and firebombs at officers and boiled over because of proposed health care reforms which were later dropped still deep frustration at public sector wage cuts and widespread corruption . nigeria's president has announced an immediate thirty percent drop in petrol prices to stem nationwide strikes and protests the trade union saying it's not enough used to end their industrial action country has been paralyzed by stoppages since. the government abandoned of the expanding fuel subsidy you know johnny the first effectively doubling costs. italian authorities say a sixth body has been found in the wreckage of the crew ship capsized off italy's west coast the male passenger was discovered wearing a life jacket in part of

a boat that was not submerged the ship's captain is in custody and may face manslaughter charges he claimed he abandoned the line of before passengers evacuated which he denies. the fragments of russia's failed mars probe agreement for them back to worth two months after its launch but not clear exactly where peter all of that has more now on the ill fated one hundred seventy million dollars mission. it's a merge there appear to be three theories as to where the remnants of phobos grunt eventually hit the earth now most of the probe burnt up in the atmosphere along with any of the toxic fuel it was carrying but around two hundred kilograms it's believed all of the modules made it through the earth's atmosphere now we heard initially from the russian military saying that that landed in the pacific ocean around one thousand two hundred fifty kilometers off the coast of chile we then

heard from cosmos the russian space agency who said this well maybe it landed in the atlantic ocean over the other side of the south american continent now we've also heard from a ballistics expert putting forward a third theory which is that the remnants of they say this probe that came back down to earth could have spin spread over such a large area that it could have actually hit both the atlantic and the pacific as well as parts of mainland brazil it was a huge leap and dissipated mission from the russian space agency it was supposed to go to the martian moon a focus pick up soil samples bring them back to earth for analysis partially where it gets its name from food was good and basically meaning phobias soil in russian now that information that data that the scientists were craving could potentially they were saying of lead to developments towards a potential martian settlement a human settlement on the moon of course all that data gone now it was

a hugely disappointing mission at the probe got into orbit and then pretty much stayed there no matter how much effort was made by ross cosmos as well as the european space agency to try and contact it and get it back on its way eventually crashing back down to earth on sunday evening. all of the reporting there will shortly cross talk to bates the pros and cons of cutting america's retreat budget tapioca business update first with new touch. it's twenty four minutes past eleven here in moscow you're watching business on r.t. russia and ukraine will restart negotiations on tuesday last week ended with the two sides on the brink of another gal's war kiev says it only wants to buy half of the volume specified in the contract but gazprom insists of could not agree to the price to the cut the gal's giant insists key of should have reduced the order by

twenty percent if it had given a six months notice late friday the european union joined in saying it's ready to play a part of the talks meanwhile analysts say the cranes economy will not be able to survive with reduced gas supplies. in the longer term. with that you did the expected by the i.m.f. to grow at least four percent per year. there's no way greg can just permanently come down its consumption to those levels i think it's going to to grow together with steel and fertilizer sector and most of the officials to games seem to be in the past already as ukrainians as you much more susceptible to the q meters around fifty four last year it doesn't look like ukraine ukraine's consumption is going to climb for soup to stay with think it's quite likely to stay flat world but. it's because most of the first savings are in the polls. and let's not check out

the markets oil first and it's gaining some experts if you continue tensions with iran as the so-called permanent premium there will be built into the oil price from now on at the moment is that more than ninety nine dollars a barrel brant is topping one hundred eleven dollars. and to now and to equities in asia are there in the red the sour the main drag is a series of s. and p. downgrade of major european economies including france and austria and stalled debt talks in greece tokyo's nikkei is down less than one of a half percent of the sour but the financial sector is the biggest loser in hong kong the hang seng is shedding roughly one percent. and the brush the markets are trading sharply down on s. and p. downgrade both the r.t.s. and the my six are currently losing around one percent. and now on to the main movers on the my six the sour energy majors are performing on stronger oil prices

the largest private oil company lube oil is shedding three quarters of a percent oil pipeline operator trans nafta manages to stay in the block sustaining last week's momentum banking stocks are hurting though this bear bag more than half a percent of the bread. the russian stock market lost twenty percent last last year in defiance of its longstanding correlation with the oil price which gained twenty five percent chris we've heard from troika dialog says this year russia's equity markets will closely monitor the european debt crisis rather than fall of the crude. the equity market is moving much more with the global trade rather than the oil price but that's only the case so long as your price remains above and acceptable limits for the budget which is proximately ninety dollars in terms of the deficit and below about one twenty five dollars which would then start

to affect global growth so it's a background issue and we spend a lot of time talking about it but the reality is that it's much less important than how the stock market performs than what happens in europe. china's growth holds up and what the government actually does in terms of you know trying to improve the investment in the business climate wants to new government takes shape in may. duty free retail market is seeing the first major deal of the year swiss operated do free and us russian rival reg stier embark on a joint venture the company will include twenty one stores located moscow's airports analysts say the joint venture will become the country's biggest doing free operator when all of the outlets linked up. and that's all the latest from the business team back in about fifteen minutes trust them.

to.

welcome back that's happened the main headline. in the has published his plans to fight corruption and poverty as well as create a more civil society russia's prime minister's launching his push for third term as president. syria's president assad pardons of crimes committed to the ten month uprising against his rule with an amnesty that also extends to only does it tens of thousands of people have been detained over the past year.