her father says the situation at another site which saw some of the fiercest battles between security forces and the opposition groups well the arab league delegation is in cairo at the moment presenting findings that despite the arab league mission mandate having finished you can see they continue to travel around the country to look at what's going on been seen as further evidence by some people that this mission to continue possibly for another month one of the observers i speak of when i asked whether they would be staying here longer whether the mission would be extended he said it looked like it would be this is the area that you see the free syrian army take control of and in the last few days a temporary cease fire between the government forces and free syrian army so we've been. seeing happening. it's an area we divided a one side you've got the government in control of. the free syrian army the arab

league observers have been meeting some of the government officials here. to try and establish exactly what it is has been happening in the city where the children have been showing us the bullet casings that they found around the area all the houses in this part you can see the destruction from the fighting this big. thank you for six three really concerning the people who are still living her to extremely dangerous situation it's not really clear who exactly is in charge think killing hate and that makes the situation very very dangerous and she even close to the conflict in syria has been devastatingly high and absolutely essential for everyone right now is to find some kind of resolution and. i know for more on the situation around syria let's talk. alastair cook for my e.u.

middle east mediator and director of the conflicts forum in beirut thank you for joining us on our team today we are just hearing over the past one and a half minutes that the arab league has just now it decided to extend its observer mission in syria where the opposition has been stepping up calls for foreign intervention saying the violence continues unabated just how critical do you think the situation is at present. when i think this decision is very important because i think it reflects to an extent a growing isolation. which has been the president of the arab league and which is being arguing quite strongly for syria to be taken to the u.n. security council but it think recently isolated i believe in the arab league people all skeptical about the value of doing this and this decision to expand it has quite strategic import because effectively by march the president free of the arab

league has to iraq and iraq has a very different view of what's happening in syria to that of the gulf cooperation council so it's a very important element that this will continue and it seems that it's quite unlikely given the timing that they will go to the u.n. security council as a few of the opposition by no means all the opposition many of the internal opposition absolutely against any referral to u.n. security council rolling stone involvement in syria when you when you talk about certain elements of the opposition approaching the u.n. for help with this ongoing crisis you mentioned moments ago that of the further isolation of president assad just just who are the groups that are isolating the president is it the opposition the protesters or is it perhaps the regional powers the western powers is it perhaps the global media networks who's to blame for all of this. no well in fact what i was saying was that it's actually. that is being

increasingly the state of that is speaking creasing the isolated within the arab league and i think that president assad is not being isolated as the west expected . and the arab league is divided i think syria and saudi arabia and god are increasingly at all odds and i think what we saw with president assad's speech and his in a damascus square which tens of thousands came shows that he has popular support and that's reflected in polls through a recent pew poll showed a majority of syrians supporting president. so i don't think he's particularly isolated but what we see in terms of the syrian national council the exile opposition group which is really only an umbrella or a very diverse groups itself isn't favor of external intervention intervention but

then it was set up for that very purpose by the french and by external bodies most of the internal parties the coordination committees the internal political groups saluki off to what they've seen in libya what they saw in iraq they have no desire to see external intervention in syria carried perhaps into sectarian war so there's a big divide the opposition is very divided and it's really only a minority who really believe in external intervention and of course being pushed along and financed from outside was interesting how you say that it's a minority the looks forward to or hopes that is for external intervention is also as you mentioned about comparisons being made between what happened with libya and iraq but the president these are the opposition groups are insisting that assad must go but do you see a way out of the current crisis without him actually being forced out because as you mentioned moments ago we saw him addressing supporters there in the main

capital square the other day like tens of thousands were out there to support him. but i again i repeat that i think that you'll find that the opposition is is deeply divided the syrian national council which was set up to model the libyan bengazi transitional council does not reflect the pinion inside syria and it's very clear and by that i mean opposition opinion in side syria most of whom on north sanctions to see assad go even though they are very much in favor of reforms and demanding reforms should take place they fear that external intervention certainly anything on the libyan model would be a disaster internally and would carry the state towards either a sectarian civil war so within syria itself as opposed to the exile groups the derived side it there's a very strong support both for. both for settling syrians problems

internally through negotiation and not through external intervention. the director of the complex for him in beirut and former middle east mediator i thank you for coming on our team today. thank you very much. libya's a ruling a national transitional council has seen a public fury in the city of benghazi the epicenter of last year's revolution against colonel gadhafi crowds stormed the council's headquarters angry at the slow pace of democratic change protesters threw stones and metal bars at the building in the first acts of violence against libya's interim leaders demonstrators have been rallying for weeks in benghazi they accuse the leadership of blocking transparency and want to know how libya's assets are being used radio host and author stephen lund believes that protests will continue against the government the crowd see as puppets of the west. i think

a mistake in orders from the government in washington and that's the way it's been all on one very good it will move you toward the real world you see here in washington using your proxies sitting in. tripoli wherever it was a little more rebel fighters take a plane you know a privately they're not even treated properly new will make sure the laws would drop they the people who were promised they would stay in these people get in those same points away everything is in secret you believe in you see go in that space is a complete waste and eliminate serving westen interest absolutely every no interest in ordinary libyans the tribes of libya a united in a resistance against nato in a c n t c government they want the country i expect attracted violence

a very anything can happen. with r.t. live from moscow and are still ahead for you in the program a country trying to rise from revolution egypt now faces the consequences of the democracy they fought so hard for as islamists sweep the election. to the u.k. sixty years but it's finally come clean after russia uncovered the secret of britain's . reaches a boiling point in romania which soars worst violence in years as protesters clashed with police for the second week running people have been demanding that the president government step down that's against a backdrop of wage cuts and tax increases in the second poorest country it's struggling to meet the demands of its international creditors. and now reports in bucharest. night and day they come to scream that defiance by

saying austerity and the feeling the government isn't listening have spilled over into anger even violence. our youth has no future they have no jobs. not a water is sixty she's worked all her life in a textile factory in brooklyn rest but now she's forced to pay for her social security out of her small pension. they need to give us a fair pension and not tell us they're borrowing the money because they don't have it. or is not just here for herself her son left for may yet but it's illegal to try and find work young rumanians feel trapped and directing most of that around go the president try and. protest as accuse him of trampling over democracy and presiding over a political elite riddled with corruption. long steep descent down down with disaster parents left us with

a heritage and we're living our children just debt. an international monetary fund loan in two thousand and nine came with tough conditions the remaining in government has tried to force its financial house into water budget and benefit cuts slashed pay pension freezes falling living standards but some say it's the people who are now being forced to pay for the mistakes of the few who steered the country to economic disaster. this was done at the expense of their remain in state and now those who hadn't been guilty for this situation they didn't even profited from it had to play for those who had profited the government blames international economic conditions however for the country's worse. let's not forget that we're in the eye of a storm of an economic european storm all around us unfortunately is a mighty tempest with economic consequences that inevitably affect us too. not good

enough so that the opposition who argue of course that they could do better every day discouraged inefficient government stays in power as a dane last for. or jews used to shorten the period as much as we can honest fast as we can by fair elections with many of them accepting there is no escape economically politics for them offers the only hope of change and that leads straight back out onto the streets was established to know what is the foundation we have failed on and i like john much for that we have him there was a stereotype of the russian on the theory of the president a little about the maji here and you can see why remain you want to tear it all down yeah and start again yeah dumbarton are able to read from any of that. and it is decision day in croatia for people who are now voting on a new accession of the outcome is hard to predict as recent surveys show the issue

has split the country right down the middle. saturday police clashed with protesters attempting to pull down an e.u. flag ahead of their referendum if there was all to say yes vote croatia will join the block by july next year but only if its membership is approved by all twenty seven u.s. investment advisor patrick young says it's easy to understand those opposing the move because croats see how they neighbors have been facing tough times. the key consideration here is that when we look at the croatian referendum there's been barely one and p. in the entire parliament who's actually been turning round of publicly saying anything against the e.u. itself so the fact that we have this amazing groundswell of support at something like forty percent easing credible it demonstrates the fact that the political classes are completely and utterly odds of touch with what the people are thinking and what the people are thinking is quite simple they've seen neighbors they've

seen similar who are emerging european countries such as themselves people like slovakia slovenia is stonier all coming into the european union they join the euro zone and they find it the worst choice and chalice imaginable because slovakia nurses and pensioners are not getting paid a third of what they would get paid if they were working in greece and to add insult to injury they're actually paying money to the greeks in order to support their euro zone bailout so they see neighboring countries such as hungary i mean the government of hungry for the past two weeks has been vilified by the european union i'm not going to get into the argument to find whether or not the prime minister is right or wrong there but certainly people get very very and feel very very uneasy about things that are being said. pressure of young right that's walking about the pressure on hungary on saturday crowds of more than eight hundred thousand protesters took to the streets in the capital budapest they were supporting the government which recently came under fire from the e.u. passing what brussels considered to be anti democratic law. school the bailout told

the i.m.f. threats of court action just this week the prime minister backed down in the rolla saying the legislation will be checked. well he's told boston is in the region following developments for us so you can check out our twitter feed as well as his personal one for the latest on hungary's dispute as well as croatia and referendum latest updates online right now. watching our city europe and the u.s. have expressed willingness to return to talks with iran over its controversial nuclear program but despite that the e.u. is seemingly still set to approve an embargo want to iranian oil france even says the time to avoid a military action is running out that's what the u.s. this week it strengthened its presence in the region by sending a second aircraft carrier to the arabian sea it's reportedly planning to sail

through the strait of hormuz which iran is threatening to block in response to sanctions the strait is a strategic waterway which the majority of oil exports from the gulf to the west pass through brian becker from the antiwar coalition says washington is deliberately escalating the situation to create a pretext for regime change in iran. the united states government has created an artificial crisis that's first and foremost it's a manufactured crisis iran is complying with the i.a.e.a. iran does not have a nuclear weapon iran is not threaten its neighbors iran has not started a war with any of its neighbors israel on the other hand has hundreds of nuclear weapons and unlike the iran i refused to sign the nuclear nonproliferation treaty does not allow. specters into its country so there's not really a nuclear menace or a nuclear danger from iran so what is the cause what's the cause of the crisis of the artificial crisis the real goal is the united states government has embarked on

a course of extreme economic aggression against iran with the hope that by creating economic suffering economic isolation economic misery that part of the population will rise. or become disenfranchised with the government so that the u.s. can do as it has in history carry out regime change and iran was the main issue discussed by american and israeli military officials when they all got together on friday the two allies are all so over the need for a preemptive strike against iranian nuclear sites with washington tel aviv not to rush into an attack but as aussies policy of reports many in israel are still expecting a war at any moment with indications that covert warfare is already well underway. from this rather spartan recording studio in jerusalem one israeli jew has been reaching out to people in iran for fifty two years ties between tel aviv in tehran

off a bit in but it's never stopped menasha from reading the news in farsi every night and hosting a weekly show for listeners in the persian world to share the views he thinks around a million iranians tune in and the topic they most want to talk about the possibility of a foreign attack on iran they are very much afraid that the iranian nuclear installations will be bombed by a foreign powers where they're israel or the united states or any other country but it's not only be rainy and her suspicious of israel or america taking action people here in israel since something's in the air you can see signs of wink and nod from israeli officials when talking about it israel is signaling to the world. if the world doesn't do anything if the wall doesn't call for more fierce actions for more crippling sanctions quoting the secretary of state clinton then israel would take the initiative and strike a blow some wonder if israel hasn't already declared an unofficial one to ren but

suspicions raced further after the assassination of another iranian nuclear scientist earlier this month while on his way to work putting everything together it is clear that whoever it is but if someone or somebody or some agency is very successful in infiltrating understanding and last sabotaging the iranian nuclear program the attack is the latest in a series of mysterious accidents linked to iran's nuclear program two aircraft accidents in the space of three years scientists disappearing equipment damaged and computer viruses unleashed and the fingers pointing at israel. and the united states this is a very respectable recommendation but. iran has made. is as good as mine it's not beyond imagination adding fuel to the fire the plan for israel and the

united states to conduct the biggest joint military drill before the end of the year it would see thousands of american troops deployed in israel. it's the most blatant sign that in attacks coming but no one in israel will come on record and say there is a covert war on iran all talk of an israeli strike is limited to the airwaves r t jerusalem you're watching the weekly here and now the u.s. congress recalled two controversial anti-piracy bills this week comes after a massive internet blackout and hacker attacks on government websites millions of net users and web giants such as wicker pedia all joined together to stand against the proposed legislation dubbed sopa and pipa if passed the laws would have allowed top media conglomerates and copyright holders to shut down large portions of the web at the same time the anonymous group was retaliating against the shutdown of

sharing site mega upload and claim to have brought down the websites of the f.b.i. and the white house. who worked with anonymous on the various operations believes the mega upload shutdown shows the government will act even with all these laws in place. the problem is that the track record of the us and all governments is such that giving them power to do one thing is almost always interpreted by themselves as a means of giving them power for many other things so and the way that you know this that the raid on mega upload tied into cellphones that show that even without so already in place here they are already arresting and arresting the owners of megaupload and shutting it down and it appears your very near future as you'll see there will be a number of other groups that will pop up using more more military methods and situation gets worse and why after lay and felt this point as the notable civil war in the us occurs. well over

a million people visited our website called for more on. do join the masses let us know your opinion on the two controversial bills and take a look at what else is available while you know that. egyptian activists have been urging a nationwide street protests saying the revolution is not over and the country is a long way from becoming democratic they want the downfall of egypt's supreme council of the armed forces and the handover of power to the newly elected parliament saturday's election results from the first post mubarak parliamentary vote so islamist parties capture an overwhelming majority seventy five percent the new assembly is due to sit for the first time on monday. in a reporter at the post says the new egypt will be a much tougher political party for the west. people have called for democracy in egypt this is the result when people call for democracy may not always as realizing

that the electorate has a very different vision of how they would like their societies run then in other places such as western europe we have islamist hardline parties coming to power and it's going to be an earthquake for both egypt and for the region the muslim brotherhood has been preparing for this moment for decades they have a very thought out detailed agenda for how they wish egypt to look like and it's a very different egypt from what we've known until now it's going to be a much more religious conservative place and much more hostile to the west. now twenty five minutes past the hour here in moscow this week a former british official in the u.k. is spies have been caught red handed here by russia but it took six years from when the kremlin made the allegations. and it now explains how moscow left no stone unturned. it's not exactly the most glamorous of james bond gadgets but he didn't in this fake stone was

a high tech transmitted british spooks used to spy on russia the allegations from moscow have always been dismissed but six years on there's rock solid evidence the u.k. can no longer deny tony blair's former chief of staff come clean admitting british spies were caught red handed the spy rock was embarrassing they had us bang to rights clearly they had known about it for some time and had been saving it up for a political purpose. the embarrassing revelations confirmed the findings of a russian television report in two thousand and six it showed this video of a man slowing down and looking at the rock as he passed apparently an agent beaming top secret intelligence from a mobile computer to a digital drop point concealed in the stone another man was filmed picking up the rock and collecting the data. the moment was the one behind the exposé and left no

stone unturned. at first dulls i thought it might be a fake story a little game but we cross checked everything with multiple sources and it turned out to be true. we didn't feel most particularly convincing for example there was a video of a british spy you're a knitting in front of the camera got me carol c.n.n. and in the suit was lying nearby the guy i wanted to look natural so we pretended that i needed to take a leak n.e.p. right in front of the camera before picking up a stone earlier. but it was his word against theirs britain fiercely denied the allegations with tony blair laughing them off as russian propaganda the truth was buried inside the u.k. secret service headquarters supposedly never to be seen again so after six years of dodging the bullet wide meet it now they're very embarrassing but i think that the british government has decided to drop bygones are bygones and say ok we made

a mistake. up and we want better relations from now on so i would see this as a first step on the road to improve relations with russia this is the home of britain's m i six the government is a broad way not be secret but how they do it is or at least should be so the embarrassment of these revelations is not so much the spying itself but the fact they were caught doing it the post cold war. supposedly forbids britain and russia from spying on each other no doubt they'll be more careful from now on either bennett london. art i'll be back in just a moment of more of the week's top stories and of course the main headlines of today.

please. please. just sleep. sleep.

sleep. we. welcome to you this is aussie life from the sky the headlines now league is deciding the future of its expired observer mission in syria amid calls words extension to help quell the violence and criticism from the syrian opposition who want us to call. croatia is voting on whether the country should join the news. protests. continue to be shaken by. people.

rising up against. stories this week tensions around nuclear program. go on iranian oil and the us building up its warship. on the internet in action a massive online backlash over us. censorship leads to the suspension pending. very special report from nigeria where multinational corporations instigate infighting and tribal tensions as a smokescreen to steal the country's vast resources.