the global equity markets following the s. and p. downgrade of major european economies the details in twenty minutes. on air and online twenty four hours a day you're watching r.t. i'm kara johnston syria's president has granted an amnesty to prisoners for what he says are crimes committed during ten months of deadly anti-government protests the honesty also applies to desert as well tens of thousands of people have been detained over the past year but our sara first now reports it's unclear whether it will be enough to stop the continuing conflict. free. streams of people leave the syrian prison into the arms of waiting family and friends. who haven't been seen for many months prisoners delighted i'm relieved to.

hear this prison on the outskirts of damascus these are the prisoners they've been selected for at least. you can see the signing on this is being seen by some of the arab league observers here. this is part of the amnesty by president assad but of course for everyone he's not being released from detention questions being asked about the 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 the honesty 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 and i've been here three months when people heard about the amnesty they were ecstatic they never thought this could happen. here on the stand now. follows

calls from. our military intervention in syria if the violence doesn't stop when general secretary thank you mean president assad to end the bloodshed and set the age of ten a season one man rule in the arab world and some critics however feel these statements risk inflaming in a way the highly volatile situation must be amnestied 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 the move has been described by some opposition groups as 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 and the amnesty will have been affected 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 hope to 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 so far this seems. certain. enough this when the pendants journalist in this ng freeman says 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 to they were people who had set things on fire destroyed many government buildings in these kinds of things 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 extremely tense there are concerns among some sections of the syrian population that's 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 but still ahead this hour the thousands of british children caught in the cold campaign this want to turn around the lives of growing numbers of poverty stricken families. and back to work somewhere fragments of the failed russian probe should have been on its way to mars by now finally one from orbit new details of a hit. but they were putin has answered his political oppositions demands and outlined how he perceives russia's future russia's prime minister has published the blueprint of his campaign for a third term as president this year he's one of the skies 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 protest has been president 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 as the whole is 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 and slogans of which sound very lucrative may sound very lucrative by the opposition leaders but he did mention that as such

a such an abrupt change in the governmental system may have diarrhea effect on the country and he did talk at length about this situation be 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 is 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 in that sphere also talks more about creating civil society and contributing more to charity and of course feels that talked about russia a becoming a major as being a major player on the global political arena. a russia has served as

a bridge between the east and the west for centuries i should have thought experience in that area and of course. is a major contributor to g eight g twenty and the united nations and the role of these organizations 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 what that hooten had to say in his full article which is online now it's called. america's mainstream media has been 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 booming

sanctions over iran's nuclear program is going to take on reports of units in the states so repeatedly hearing a war is virtually inescapable. troy two options bomb iran or let iran get the bomb with tension between iran and the west as high as ever a host of hard line speakers on us mainstream media seem to be pushing the audience to believe that war is inevitable 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 of the media are already preparing the grounds for it some five 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 here futile

like a fiend formation 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 back kurds 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 these 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 an issues maybe you as mainstream media have a birthday with cheerleaders for nor for the film 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 is no doubt that mainstream media are crucial in this idea of settling this idea that the u.s. is going to be on a perch actual war media analysts say since the intervention in the legal analysts us media have been instrumental in making americans get used to the idea that washington will get 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 warrants a political solution don't belong in the u.s. media 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 externally is heading into a new political trap to sunday's election season three parties head into the lower house of parliament the presidents a group of previously held seats but has retained a huge majority but poll was brought forward after parliament was dissolved last autumn and follows last month's deadly clashes between police and striking oil workers was on a book 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 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 and just last year his security at the now their 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 position 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. as opponents say that it is just a kiss magic change that was in part prompted by it he's in these in this over what

happened in arab countries and his attempt to sort of preemptively blind a neat public discontent over it because i sense a political system that may and rise in the future all parties agreed that these elections were test 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 and. indeed past this. more news twenty four hours a day at r.t. dot com has just some of what's online at the moment israeli agents in disguise the story of how mossad intelligence officers opposing the cia agents to recruit train in the rain terrorists took time. and post-mortem poke a new if i don't like the case on facebook that lets users submit their final status update the twenty first century twist on the deathbed confession got some

details of all to dot com on this page more. on our you tube channel. is. the official anti application. called talk from the top story. on the. video on demand. mind. and street now in the palm of your.

on the dot com. now thousands of 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 have slipped through the government net handouts as your smith reports from london. this is something the 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 there are 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 all of them have to eat and their school uniform i have to buy and on top of the. electricity use. i try to god there are 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 we know about growing up in a cold and. has a really profound impact on children in terms of their physical health in terms of mental health in terms of their general wellbeing in direct effects in terms of educational time and their chances in life 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 and every year energy bills ten. up and up additionally and crucially poor families often use a pays you go you system for varitek tricity and gas which works out more expensive than paying monthly a poverty premium in action meanwhile julie sees first hand the of the price of being poor if she can only afford to heat her house for two hours a day her children suffered school under god jump out to put on and socks on the sill colossally would go to places to call and then go to bed late and where governor late and they 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'll 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 more headlines from around the world this hour pakistan's supreme forces charge the country's prime minister with content raising the possibility of his boss occasion. has been told to hearing court of the nineteenth of january failing to comply with a legal order to open a corruption against the president the governments are using to investigate charges against the president. violence has erupted between rival militia groups in the libyan city of leaving at least three people dead in the round fifty injured they reportedly used machine guns and rockets and

we can shoot out began with local council demanded tribe members accused of aiding colonel gadhafi the interim government's attempts to broker a cease fire in the area have failed to take hold. a car bomb has been detonated in the iraqi city of mosul killing at least eight people and wounding four explosion happened in a residential complex which houses displaced shia muslims who was known as an al qaeda stronghold and saw some of the most brutal violence for in the u.s. invasion in two thousand and three. italian or thora to say a sixty body has been found the wreckage of the ship capsized off italy's west coast email and was discovered wearing a life jacket in part of the boat that was not submerged the ship's captain is in custody and may face manslaughter charges it's claimed he abandoned the line before

passengers and evacuated which he denies. these are in fact live pictures of that continuing rescue operation of that story we just mentioned. while fragments from russia's failed mars probe purpose grants have a form back to work but it's not a clear exactly where most of the probe burnt up in the atmosphere but about two hundred kilos of material made it through russia's military believes the deadly landed in the pacific ocean over a thousand kilometers off the chilean coast but this take experts claim there might also be pieces of course in the atlantic just off result the one hundred seventy million dollar probe was launched two months ago was supposed to collect so samples from a martian moon. but i told our t.v. look at how a change of power in georgia eighty years ago impacted on the country's arts and culture. when i'm comfortable question leads to

a great accusation the world who is more is you know far. the president who isn't supposed to hide anything. worth someone asking him why do you make a secret of it when the powers to be suppress the voice of those who think different. when you get experiencing very serious problems after the saakashvili government came to power in two thousand and three but the book that was when the problems began piling up. interviews were now off limits to our journalists they were all from beason up and humiliated in public and one of attempt to protect property puts life in real danger in fact we have been deprived of the only means to a living i have gone to the original soup all the papers. then legalized the ownership rights on the basis of companies freedom becomes just a stage prop yes you can watch our special report in full in just

a few minutes time here on r.t. first the business news now with natasha. it's almost twenty four minutes past one here in moscow you're watching business on r.t. european shares are recovering and late morning trade on monday that's following a slide on fears that euro zone credit downgrades could worsen the region's debt crisis late friday ratings agency standard and poor's downgraded nine e.u. countries with france and austria losing their top notch status let's now cross live to our business desk. for an update on this sentiment on the trading floors hello so how are the russian markets reacting to the downgrade well investors are quite nervous and we can see that in the numbers actually and the russian markets are reflecting the jitters that we're seeing

around the world both the r.t.s. and m i six open more than one percent in the red but they have now since returned to the last of two negative we can see that is losing point one percent of the r.t.s. as you can see here is just point three percent so not big numbers about still and of course some experts believe that we could see the biggest daily fall since the twenty first of the center for my sex even though the numbers have gone back up now and of course all this comes as no surprise after s. and p. downgraded nine european countries including cyprus austria and malta and because the russian markets closed on friday before the news came out so we're seeing a delayed reaction right now and some analysts say that see the markets stay in the red throughout the day but the falls won't be as the because of the strong oil prices. thanks for that update that was business artie's course rick costa rica

and now on to the actual a numbers europe first to the indices are recovering after opening in the red that saft are series of s. and p. downgrades of u.s. we've heard just now the footsie at the moment is a third of a percent germany's dax is about half a percent higher. and now on to the russian markets and they're currently trading slacked off to open it sharply down. and now on to the major movers on the my six the sour blue chips are mixed better give majors is supported by stronger crude the largest private oil company alou core oil is around a third of a percent oil pipeline operator trans nafta has slipped into bread struggling to keep up wost weeks momentum one gained about fourteen percent banking stocks are flat to positive spare bank is just a notch in the one. and

a world the sour is gaining some experts view continued tensions with iran as the so-called permanent premium that will be built into the oil price from now on at the moment the w t i is that more than ninety nine dollars a barrel brant is a one hundred eleven and a half dollars. the russian stock market lost twenty percent last year in defiance of its longstanding correlation with the price of oil which gained about twenty five percent chris we for dialogue says russia's equity markets this year will closely monitor the european debt crisis rather than following crude. the equity market is moving much more with the global trend 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 approximately 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 when 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 move government takes shape in may and that's all we have time for and this edition of business business you can always find a lot more stories on our site at our. business. this

is claude. nolen sitting on the edge of past and present. mixing reality it's nothingness. but if you enter this time. the mystery of supernatural will reach you. shaimaa know siberia on. more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world

has been seeing from the streets of canada on giant corporations or on the day. you're watching our t.v. that's take a look at the headlines now syria's president pardons crimes committed during a ten month uprising against his rule with an amnesty that also extends to only desert is tens of thousands of people have been detained over the past year serious to locked in violence. has published his plans to fight corruption and poverty as well as create a more civil society russia's prime minister is launching.