it's eleven pm this is r.t. live from moscow welcome if you just joined us money is kevin zero in first this moscow's vying to do everything it can to make sure the u.n. security council doesn't sanction a military intervention in syria that pledge from russia's top diplomat as he wrapped up a briefing about twenty eleventh's foreign policy peter all of us at the foreign ministry. russia blames both the assad government and the opposition for fighting continuing in the country and moscow wants to see both sides put down their weapons and come together around the table to try and hammer out a peaceful solution to what's happening there now what was new that was said by said again lavrov on wednesday is that the proposed peace talks that are being put forward by the arab league which could take place in cairo sergey lavrov said should they break down should they not come to fruition then russia was willing to

step in to mediate and broker a peace in it both the opposition and the syrian government will welcome to come here to russia to try and sort out their problems sort out their problems now one thing that sergey lavrov was. there was very strong on was reiterating russia's push stance that they will not tolerate any form of international interference international military interference into syria very pointed a finger towards the united states accusing washington of having it lead from behind when it came to the crisis that we saw in twenty eleven in in libya. saying that's so gay lover of on the russian government did not want to see a similar situation of foreign military intervention happen in syria warning the u.s. not to try this lead from behind tactic as he has it when it comes to syria saying that international military intervention of that kind can have huge ramifications saying that it can spread beyond the borders and become

a major international incident. of course leading countries are closely watching the situation in the region the changes that far from over it's only the beginning we have to understand that if we want nations to solve their own issues we mustn't interfere especially militarily we must support dialogue between the conflicting signs we have to explain to the opposition forces that they have to find an agreement not. the regime this is the way to a wide scale war that will affect not just the region but countries far beyond surrogate lover of the saying that russia supports dialogue in bringing about peace in syria and warns other nations against attending any kind of foreign military intervention peter all of our correspondent with us now speak to a man who's been in the forefront of western diplomacy in syria for years former british ambassador to damascus that least one joins us now live from the u.k. mr eastwood good evening what are your impressions of the ruling baath party first

of all it's of a party who's been in power for nearly fifty years and led by a religious minority how is it managed to stay on top for so long do you think. fairly ruthless use of an intelligence operators. permeating all levels of the education system for example and eliminating most of our assets nearly all facets of any sort of civil society and. it's a totalitarian state of many ways is it there would you say out of touch with what the people want yes you know what the west and the syrian opposition want to sad go on but who suppose this is the crucial question i suppose to step in and replace him if he does go what implications could that have for syria in the entire region well there is no government in waiting there is this syrian national council which is based outside syria which has

a temporary president. but it does not command universal support amongst the dissidents and its links to those who are actually on the streets whether armed or unarmed in syria seems somewhat tenuous at times so does that mean that the b. plan they feel like isn't sufficient. i don't think there is a b. plan syria is sliding into a probably largely sectarian civil war. and. the two sides are not within talking distance of each other in terms of their public positions and indeed. if the opposition were to agree to. to dialogue they would fear that anybody who had been.

in any way involved in opposition would be. taken in by the security or thirties and probably never seen again so it's very difficult to see how the guard of which the russian foreign minister is asking for is actually going to happen and you do all surprised by the news that we've been hearing from members of the syrian opposition claiming that they've been approached by a rather strong ally of damascus over the years with an offer to help them take over the syrian government provided assad retains the presidency is that viable be are you surprised. i don't think it's viable. president assad. has zero credibility amongst the opposition. i'm not entirely surprised because syria's syrian government's few remaining friends are really increasingly embarrassed and are casting around for

a position that looks more or less respectable. and that's how i would interpret the iranian view raring in line if there was ever to be a new new government could president assad remain at the helm in any case. i think it unlikely frankly things have now gone too far. the arab league observer mission now is expected to deliver its verdict on syria this week of course how independent is their report likely to be it's something we've been questioning over the past couple of weeks because one of the members caps are as a really been calling for military intervention. i mean different arab states have different different views but the report will have to speak for itself i guess what it will say. not sure feline's broken up to mr eastwood or whether you're still there could you still hear me about as least we would now that we've lost the line to bestow there in the u.k.

but talking there two former british ambassador to syria got the the best part of what he had to say. ok now it is a media briefing in moscow foreign minister lavrov also stressed the kremlin is stepping up its efforts to prevent war in the persian gulf to russia thinks a western attack on iran would be catastrophic for the entire region to and says it's ready to resume international discussion on its nuclear program but that won't come easy the six party talks broke down a year ago with the west suspecting iran is developing a nuclear bomb tougher you embark on a rainy an oil somebody in the pipeline and to run threatening to block a vital fuel transit route if restrictions prove harmful to it but the u.s. saying it'll use force to keep it open something american middle east policy analyst for the told me believes could spot world war three. if iran even makes an attempt to block the straits of hormuz oil prices will probably double or treble this saying is that the real danger here is that it could produce a shooting war if the united states does follow through on its resolve to keep the

straits open which will be that easy and i think that it virtually guarantees that iranian naval forces and u.s. naval forces would come into conflict with a worst case scenario was world war three i'm afraid the problem is that iran is surrounded by a number of countries that are essentially hostile to it and some of them are nuclear arms and this is a perfect cauldron for for starting something with a very minor relatively minor incident that escalates and escalates and escalates and winds up as a as a major war now following on from this we've got more opinion more analysis in around twenty minutes time on the channel when people talk to the country's nuclear program the effectiveness of western sanctions right now. we had tim geitner going around the world trying to get countries not to import a rainy an oil i mean from trans perspective that's basically an act of war you're going to choke off their economy why should be why should these people be punished

. when it's probably just between the economic sanctions and military action one is to within the realm of. peaceful measures the other is something that could spark a war but this could. spark a war in itself to go to you know go back to go ahead. and fight so many make the mistake of implying this sanctions are just peaceful means they're not they are coersion they kill the innocent and for the latest round of sanctions i mean you go back to iraq how three million children die the future of iraq was destroyed and madeleine albright turned around and said it was worth it and now you apply sanctions because you. don't want to expend the military expenses you cannot is hack iran and to sit back and have no casualties and then the war would definitely be depleted so sanctions are imposed hoping the iranian people would get so fed up

they would overthrow their own regime and it hasn't worked for two years so they're trying other ways other means of making this happen. in the cross-talk team on air with you here in about twenty minutes time tonight now every day millions of people turn to one website as a one stop shop for their encyclopedic research but if you do it right now you see this we can pedia is deliberately blacking out its english language website it's joined a twenty four hour protest against anti piracy bills that are making their way through u.s. congress if passed they would allow the government to block search engine links to any website which may contain what's perceived as copyright material the laws are designed to protect people's work from being shared without permission or payment but internet campaigners say that would go way too far the foundation behind wiki pedia says the laws would make it impossible my own for information sites like this

to continue to operate. what we've achieved already is getting the debate going we've been talking about this for weeks and weeks and weeks in america in congress trying to get people to understand that this may have some good intentions in the bill but the actual effects of it will be to crush sites like wikipedia and so the fact that in the end the community we decided to take the english version down for a day has meant that people are listening to us at last and talking and already in america we're beginning to see people say well hang on this is probably not the right way to go about fighting piracy because look at what it's going to do to sites like wikipedia so we're not happy we've done it but we think that it's a very important thing to do just to make sure that people realize the threat to the liberty of freedom of speech and information that these two bills in american congress pose well we're completely is not the only side to take it for the day artie's been hearing from others who agree that the bill could jeopardize any

website. or fear is that the law would have unintended consequences now it could be used to threaten innocent websites like ours the law is badly written it's full of descriptions of technical stuff creates censorship was right out of the authoritarian playbook very aggressive libel laws people because everything is published everywhere on the internet people will shop for the venue in london and they want to sue someone for libel and the same could be true for copyright infringement when this kind of thing goes through the basic problem is that you aspire to be given control of fundamental parts of the internet like the domain name system and the more us politicians try to interfere with how it works the bigger problem becomes the rest of the world. but your opinion matters to us very much we're asking today what the anti-piracy bills mean to you which side of the fence you on about it you can tell us that r t dot com this is what you are telling us so far the majority of you think it's a conspiracy to kill freedom of speech that is the overwhelming opinion sixty five

percent but a quarter of you telling us it's a cash grab by greedy entertainment giants the final few split between saying it is no overstated what started off as a noble cause at least all whether it's nonis anti piracy drive this been marred by paranoid techies as you put it to be sure for tarty dot com while you're there too you might be interested in these stories where do you turn in a world without we could pedia them. today users are almost filling the gap with a few fun facts of their own just take them with a pinch of salt of course you've been warned. stripping to make a statement they're at it again why members of this controversial ukrainian women's group are displaying their anger at india this time over sex trafficking read more about them and r.t. dot com plenty more online video reports now you choose channel two.

news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images. from the streets of canada. showing up for racial to rule the day. beasts which brighten. songs from silence to christian. stance on t.v. dot com. wealthy british style. but i. like the.

market why not come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike stronger the no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into kaiser report. is less than two months now until russians choose their next president and from one of the team of potence reiterated his readiness to talk with the opposition but the premier voiced his confusion over the newly formed league of electors after those in charge of the independent body failed to show up for a meeting with putin says their claim about the power elites not listening is unclear given that they don't come when invited to meet the pm the league was formed by celebrities and social activists who want to monitor the presidential vote six candidates of fog request to run against putin a couple of which don't belong to a party including mccall prokofiev's one of russia's russia's richest men the

election commission now has got ten days to review the applications and draw a final shortlist before the nation votes on march fourth. greece suffered another standstill during wednesday with a massive strike just as the country's global paymasters pay another visit thousands of workers hit the streets to voice how destructive they think the cuts are even though more may be needed a new european central bank and i.m.f. delegates are there to try and beat a deadline for greece to get vital funds to slash its almost unserviceable debt professor economist professor younis said that a focus told us that if the deal is approved the banks will be the only winners. nothing that happens in greece makes any difference because over the top decisions are reached in brussels in frankfurt in paris in berlin but whether greece will default or not will depend ultimately on the official sector not because i believe in the will of the fork out money which is necessary in order to meet its repayment

of the late last the latest the bond issue which is maturing in march whatever money greece will receive from now on from today hundreds it will it be used in order to be paid the balance to the greek state whatever money deceives it will be going to one pocket real exit from the other point and it will go back to the banks so that the greek state are so good the public sector the five private sector are not going to see any of it so this is called. a set of shenanigans for instance yet the now the installment in the agonizingly slow process to default which in the end is inevitable. rounding up small world news for you now on a bit of good news out of about a woman listed among the missing from the italian cruise line a disaster has been found alive in germany and now they're there for means there are still twenty one people unaccounted for but the search for them sadly has been

suspended after a vessel shifted slightly and hopes of finding anyone else alive have all but faded eleven bodies have been recovered now since the costa concordia sank five days ago the captain is under house arrest he's accused of sailing too close to the shore and abandoning ship before it has been evacuated. israel's war their struggle more than guards there it killed two people one of them a teenager palestinian security sources say the raid hit an area used by hamas some was accompanied by time fire tension between the coastal terror training israel's been calm in recent days following an increase in rocket fire attacks in december. position leader aung sang suu kyi will run for parliament in april it will mark the nobel peace prize winners return to official politics since a release from years of house arrest in twenty ten but with only forty eight seats up for grabs the elections unlikely to change the political landscape in the military dominated country. a suicide bomb attack in southern afghanistan has killed twelve and left twenty three people injured of

a motorcycle bomber detonated his explosives at a bridge that was under construction in the could jackie area in the restive helmand province earlier today a blast in the neighboring district killed an afghan intelligence official in his two bodyguards as they left his house. folks again now launching is the region rich in natural resources and i guess you'd expect people there to be reaping the rewards a year after the revolution to get them out of poverty but it seems the realities very different as art is ridiculous. this is a region where things are run a little differently from the rest of tunisia you have a. my father worked in the mine for twenty five years my two brothers worked and died in the mine we live in the mining region our days are arranged by the sound of the home from the mine not by calls to prayer. the gas subleasing is home to tunisia's phosphate mines one of the key exports in the country which ranks fifth in the world for phosphate production yet for the past three years the workers and

their families have been involved in a bitter struggle with their employer gaffes of phosphates that we never took anything from the government and the authorities have always forgotten about us this year the gaffes are phosphates company or c f g conducted a competition for jobs just like they did in two thousand and eight we hope their choices would be based on a different criteria this time but they weren't. shares involvement in support of action for the miners during the authoritarian rule of president ben ali resulted in a prison term. in two thousand and eight we went on strike with the miners and were arrested all those who supported them lawyers teachers professors we were told we were an organized gang who wanted to overthrow the regime. the government's been gone since then but the problems remained so the strikes continue unemployment in the region is at a staggering fifty five percent and while local residents believe they should be

given priority when it comes to filling jobs at the mine the c.g.s. has been employing people from other regions there are no jobs for those whose parents died or were injured in the mines their families never received any compensation for their loss so i've been protesting here for six months but will stay here for a year to hear how ever long it takes to resolve this problem. though many tunisians hope the ousting of autocratic ben ali will improve the situation the country the reality is rather bleak allah has what evolution hasn't solved the economic issues which have been happening for months now the provisional government hasn't even begun looking at ways of beslan poverty. for these workers and usually in solving this crisis cost lives a lot of people are killing themselves others are leaving the country and some have died because they were too poor to afford medical help. after the tunisian revolution and the new provisional government has promised

a life of prosperity and better employment opportunities for workers in this mining town once passed by but the miners say the situation has only got worse the region's location far from the political center of the country means their plight is as unusable to the new government as it was to the old one in the ghost carty tunisia just across talks on or about five minutes from now but next let's get across all the news business with kareena. hello and welcome to our business update this hour the international monetary fund proposes to more than double its lending capacity in order to save the global financial system from worsening european debt crisis bloomberg agency says that the i.m.f. wants its members to add five hundred billion dollars to its reserves earlier the lenders managing director christine lagarde announced that the fund is studying options to increase its war chest cites

a group of twenty official saying that the i.m.f. is encouraging countries like china brazil and russia to become a top contributors. with the ongoing turbulence on the financial markets in europe russia is preparing for worsening scenarios in the european debt crisis the country's finance minister. moving the response of preparing last year by increasing no reserve fund to fifty seven billion dollars and the national wealth of funds to eighty eight billion this is obviously still lower than the pre-crisis levels of two thousand and eight. prevent growth of spending and create new budget maneuvers for the implementation of anti-crisis measures we are prepared for the worsening of the crisis but we hope it will not happen. let's take a look at the markets now u.s. stocks continue to rise with semiconductor companies and builders again in the most stocks are also boosted by better than you anticipated results from goldman sachs goldman sachs shares after the company reported results that beat wall street's

expectations the bank is also kind of pay in bonus payments during two thousand and eleven to twelve point two billion dollars. european stock markets ended mixed on wednesday but the footsie and the dax managed to regain their higher position in markets gained on news that the international monetary fund proposed a new lending program they were also supported by successful debt sales in germany the dax gained over a quarter of a percent led by a two and a half percent rise in fenian technologies and a two percent gain for hancock. and turning to russia now where the markets closed in the black as well six and a half percent higher while the r.t.s. finish point seven percent and the black let's have a look at some index movers although my sex processed top oil company was traded in the black oil prices look or was also high point seven percent higher and russia's largest lenders bank has also ended in the black after coming under pressure early in the session the bank's four year profit jumped seventy five percent topping ten

billion dollars that's under russia's accounting standards electricity produced on russia closed higher as well company's sales rose nine point three percent last year. and russia saw new car sales jumped fifty percent. thousand and eleven as the market enjoys post-crisis rally consultancy firm ernst and young says the sales reached over sixty five billion dollars with prices going faster than the country's inflation however analysts say that the era of intensive growth is over as the programmes of state support have come to an end as for this year they expect no more than thirty percent growth in the market. well that's all for me in the business thank you on our team but with that we could always find more financial stories just log on to our website that started out college classes back to watch.

when it can uncomfortable question leads to a great accusation towards who is more is enough obviously the president who isn't supposed to hide anything. more it's someone asking him why do you make a secret of it when the powers to be suppress the voice of those who think different culture when you get experiencing very serious problems off of the saakashvili government came to power in two thousand and three if you put it from

a book that was when the problems began piling up. interviews were now off limits to our journalists they were often beason up and humiliated in public when the attempt to protect property puts life in real danger the fact we have been deprived of the only means of earning a living and i have gone to the original sit all the papers yes i'll be out there little i used the ownership rights on the basis of companies freedom becomes just a stage prop. the move. to. the

be. the big. tobacco. this is claude. the balancing on the edge of past and present. missing reality is nothingness.

but if you enter this time. the mystery of supernatural will reach you. shaimaa know siberia. but for moscow this is our top stories for you must go. firms of push for talks to solve syria rejecting any military intervention and pledging to ensure the u.n. does north rise any this is american some allies one calls against the syrian regime with qatar proposing to send in troops. iran says it's ready to head back to talks about its nuclear program with western oil sanctions looming on the u.s. poised to take action in the persian gulf international six party talks broke down a year ago with around under six.