stocks are reacting to the s. and p. downgrade bears rule on the russian equity markets the details of when even if. it's three pm in moscow this is r g coming to you live on news now with our top story this hour and syria's president has granted an amnesty to prisoners for what he says are crimes committed during the ten months of deadly anti-government protest the amnesty also applies to army deserted tens of thousands of people have been detained over the past year there sara firth reports it's unclear whether all be enough to stop the continuing conflict. streams of people leave the syrian prison into the arms of. family and friends. who have been. prisoners 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 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 to use a good stamp 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 on the stand calls for.

military intervention in syria if the violence doesn't stop when general secretary bank. president assad to end the bloodshed the age of tennis the rule in the arab world. some critics however these statements were still flaming in a way the 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. 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 then the amnesty will have been a. but the answer is c. does not consider this the start of dialogue but you know if your family just is a welcome one hundred will be free 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. so. that must this. sorrow is also updating what's happening online you can follow her blog at our two dot com for her first hand experiences from damascus syria now the amnesty another box on the list of arab league peace plan but independent journalist was a foul and says the syrian leaders actually submitting to foreign pressure. it's being received in a kind of mixed way by the syrian syrian people cause 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 destroyed many government buildings and these kinds of things the reaction is very much seen as though the president is 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's among the many people who are being released 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 by the same time there is very much a concern that it could be again just me we still have this hour for you european markets keep calm over the downgrade we have one standard and poor's decision to watch the ratings of nine a condom use means for the recovery of the instead region. plus thousands of british children in the call we report on a campaign trying to turn around the lives of growing numbers of poverty stricken families. but it has answered his political oppositions demands

and outlined how he perceives russia's future russia's prime minister is probably the blueprint for his campaign for a third term as president this year. has the details. well in a lot of ways this was a statement which was directed there's a response to the accusations of statements made by the opposition leaders during the protest the 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 we've put it in effect the education levels went up employment has also risen over the past fifteen years as the awol 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 the 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 of the country's dependence on natural resources oil and gas something which needs to be still be taken step away from there's of course the progress into the high tech world and

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 and 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 think what experience in that area and of course to also is a major contributor to g. eight g. twenty in the united nations and the role of these are going to zation it's something which also should be taken into account and you also basically underline this statement by saying that the country has to come out of the post. 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. but it's an outlined his platform for for president in an

article he wrote you can find the full translation on our website r t the. european markets haven't let the massive ratings downgrade cast a shadow over trading today with only a slight fall on friday readings dian standard and poor's slashed the scores of my e.u. nations including the aaa scores of france and austria germany's foreign minister has proposed europe gets its own credit agencies financial commentator jim rogers says u.s. based agencies are becoming obsolete. the fact is you do need somebody competent and somebody who can examine and decide who is who is solvent and who has not sought you know its own until a few months ago that they had the united states as a aaa credit united states is the largest debtor nation in the history of the world it's absurd that its true was was aaa now you just need somebody competent who can go in there it doesn't matter whether it's russian or australian american or

european just so you have somebody competent and these guys the s. and p. and moody's have had up a semi monopoly for decades they have gotten corroded and lazy and sloppy and they're no longer confident the best way to get out of it is to go ahead and let people go bankrupt that the people who made mistakes take their losses the banks who made the bad loans the people who invested in in the bad and the bad banks they should take their losses and start over it looks as though the e.u. is about to make some of them take some losses and that will be good that way we can start over and go forward the problem is they're not doing enough they're not taking enough losses they're hoping that they can get through the next election or two and then everything will be ok this is not going to solve the problem it may delay the problem a bit longer it does not solve the problem greece it has to is going to default there's no question that greece cannot pay its its debt but it can do it in an organized manner where they can say ok we're going to put this together we're going

to take fifty percent losses or whatever but they can just walk out the door and cause a crisis where 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 is going to can reports viewers in the states are repeatedly hearing how war is virtually an escape of all. twenty two 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 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

as 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 if you 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 e's specters have already been in the country monitoring iran's nuclear facilities when you american people hear 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 and two 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 proved to be cheerleaders for your in the field 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 since the intervention in libya as u.s. media has 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 at a place 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 as 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 ship when in fact it's something because of a cold banker 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 sounds well opened but it doesn't have to be that way and some argue political solution although not popular words in the media of a cavalry is better than war and death i'm going to check on reporting from washington r.t. . but kazakhstan is heading into a new political chapter sunday's election means three parties headed to the lower house of parliament the president's group previously held all seats but has retained a huge majority international observers have praised the transparency of the vote but the o. s. c.e. mission says there were a number of violations. 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 just last year his security at another five year 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 you want to have these 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 magic change that was important problem to he's in these in this over what happened in arab countries and he's attempt to sort of preemptively blonde amy public discontent over it because i sense a political system that may and rise in the future all. these elections were test of confidence of 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 in the. past this. more news twenty four hours a day. or so some of what's online at the moment israeli agents in disguise the story of how mossad intelligence officers are posing as cia agents to recruit and

train iranian terrorists to attack tehran. and the post mortem poke a new if i die application on facebook that lets users cement their final status update the twenty first century twist on the deathbed confession you've got all the details for you at our team dot com and there's plenty more video on our you tube channel. is it. the official delegation. from the.

video. and. now in the palm of your. thousands of british families are feeling the chill stuck below the poverty line and unable to meet soaring energy bills that's an impact on the next generation who slipped through the government and that for heating handouts as more smith now 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 all of them have to eat and their school uniform i have to buy and on top of the car down the electricity use and the lie bill i try to call down so many. is now working. 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 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 under funded and 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 all the price of being poor if she can only afford to heat her house for two hours

a day her children's school. jumper to put on socks on the sill colossally would go to places to call and they go to bed late. late and they don't concentrate. on was in big trouble or the. tired scene is knowledge of the plague. mafia save the children says it will carry on lobbying the government to the help poor families lead 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 lowers smith o.t. london. it's twenty two minutes past the hour let's take a look at some other headlines from around the world pakistan's supreme court has charged the country's prime minister with contempt raising the possibility of his prosecution goes to jail and he has been told to appear in court on the nineteenth of january after failing to comply with a legal order to open

a corruption probe against the president the government's refusing to investigate charges against the president maintaining he has legal immunity. violence has erupted between rival militia groups in the libyan city of guard leaving at least three people dead and around fifty injured have reportedly used machine guns and rockets and we can shoot out fighting began when the local military council demanded a tribe handover members accused of aiding colonel gadhafi the interim government's attempts to broker a cease fire in the area i felt take home. a car bomb has been detonated in the iraqi city of mosul killing at least eight people and wounding four the explosion happened in a residential complex which houses to put it this place shia muslims model was known as an al qaeda stronghold and saw some of the most brutal violence following the u.s. invasion in two thousand and three. italy's environmental minister

has described the ship disaster off the tuscan coast as a serious ecological which is calling for urgent action to drain the fuel from the capsized vessel which overturned on friday killing at least six people sixteen others are still unaccounted for the ship's captain is in custody and may face manslaughter charges. well fragments from russia's failed mars probe phobos group have fallen back to earth but it's not exactly clear 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 debris landed in the pacific ocean over a thousand kilometers on a two lane coast but a list of experts claim there might also be pieces of phobos in the atlantic just thought brazil one hundred seventy million dollar probe was launched two months ago and was supposed to collect soil samples from a martian moon will shortly crosstalk debates the pros and cons of cutting

america's military budget but first look at the latest from the top at the business desk. it's almost twenty five minutes past three pm here in moscow and you're watching business r.t. european equities are mixed following a slide early in the day on fears that euro zone credit downgrades could have worsened the region's debt crisis late friday ratings agency standard and poor's downgraded nine e.u. countries with france and austria losing their prized aaa grades and portugal plummeting to junk status let's now cross live to our tease business desk to see how the news has been received on the trading or. hello my do you know so how are the russian markets reacting to this well that's actually the russian markets kicked off the trade in session in the red both the r.t.s. and the my stocks were losing around one percent but they have since recovered slightly there are currently flat and of course this nervousness comes as no

surprise to anyone after s. and p. downgraded as you said nine of the countries including cyprus and malta are among others and of course they're saying that the russian markets closed on friday before the news came out so what we're seeing right now is basically a delayed reaction but strong crude prices are helping prevent those deeper falls that we saw a little bit earlier but numbers could change because the fitch ratings agency has announced that it has revised its outlook for russia's credit rating from positive to stable and that's mainly due to political uncertainty and global concerns over growth in general but the level of the triple b. level has remained unchanged but we could see some more jitters because of that. thanks so much for the update that was business artie's courser vibe and now let's take a look at the actual numbers europe is mixed the footsie is losing around

a third of a percent germany's dax is why don't beat its. gaining around less than a quarter of a percent. and this choppy trade for the russian markets there in the walk this hour with the r.t.s. gaining around two tons of a percent and the mines sex if they want to positive. now the main the movers on my sixty sour blue chips are mixed energy majors are supported by stronger crude the largest private oil company lukoil is up to thirty two percent referred shares of the oil pipeline operator trans never have slipped into bread struggling to keep up last week's momentum when i actually gave one hundred percent banking stocks are flat to positives bear bank is just the launch of the block. and oil the sour is gaining some experts you continued tensions with iran as the so-called department of premium that will be built and the oil price remark at the moment the w.t.r.

is that more than ninety nine dollars a barrel brant is topping one hundred and eleven dollars. and that's all we have time for in this edition of business but you can always find a lot more stories there on the site it's our slash business season. when an uncomfortable question leads to a grave accusation the world sues moore's you know fog. 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 off of the saakashvili government came to power in two thousand and three but a book that was when the problems began piling up. interviews were now off limits to our journalists they were all from beeston up and humiliated in public and one of the attempt to protect property puts life in real danger in fact we have been deprived of the only means of earning a living and i have the gall to originals of all the papers that got their little ice-t. ownership rights on the basis of companies freedom becomes just a stage prop. wealthy british style lives that's not on let's go.

to. the markets find time to find out what's really happening to the global economy for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to gaza reports. you're watching artsy line from moscow our top story is syria's president pardons of crimes committed during the ten month uprising against his rule with an amnesty that also extends to army deservers tens of thousands of people have been detained over the past year with syria still locked in violence. lead to murder britain has published his plan fight corruption and poverty as well as create a more civil society a prime minister is launching his course for a third.