people the ones known as duffy's main stronghold the forces loyal to the full moco know be managed to take control over the city and did manage actually to raise the green flag at one of the city's gates the green flag symbolizing khadafi that office ruling as far as the local officials have been reports in least five national transitional council people have been killed we can say for sure what was the reason behind these violent and by nobody but we know that the same day they've been justice minister announced that the international criminal court has allegedly agreed to let say for the song to duffy's song to be tried in leave it until even more although it hasn't been confirmed by the i.c.c. itself but i only say that the violence and this announcement may be cannot just hours later violence erupted in other parts of the country in the eastern part in

the town of bint goes he was known as the rebel stronghold and later on we've been hearing about that all and see them there on the capital they've said so several take points wrong tripoli following the clashes reports is that but also we can see that's the end to see a warning that the country may fall into civil war with the situation very dangerous trying to calm down fatah says and trying to take control over the tensions and not to mold them to escalate further. we've seen that phone we. protest in benghazi when people have been demonstrating in the against and to see if the m.d.c. just trying is trying to take control of the situation but unfortunately so far was little success. and often reporting right that well meantime a former member of the n t c u says that he had won the council because after loyalists could return to attack but that his concerns were ignored journalist patrick hayes says the new government is ultimately failing in his job. the

national transitional council itself was very much something that was already chosen by the west not something that was chosen by the libyan people it was very much kind of put in place and then there are kind of helicopters in when you get a fee was gotten rid of so the thing i find very striking here actually is that the n t c isn't doing itself any favors in terms of pro-democracy campaign is also seeing off. supporters as well warnings for a long time that this could happen in bani walid people are saying very least two months we may get a pro get off the uprising here and the entity did nothing about it so it's not surprising and it does seem like the m.t.c. is impotence and this is reflecting the needs and desires of anyone in libya at the moment there was a lot of congratulates really talk by cameron sarkozy and the bomber who kept a bit of a distance but was still involved after the fall of gadhafi i think they're going to be very reluctant to admit that what they didn't do was bring about democracy in

the country they just basically puts the struggle of the libyan people on hold while they were getting rid of gadhafi. on from libya to the have a damascus where gulf nations are pulling their our big observers out of syria even though the mission has been extended for another month the saudi dominated gulf cooperation council also wants the un's most powerful group to put new pressure on damascus to end the bloodshed syria's foreign minister accuses some arab states of joining an international conspiracy against the country and of blatant interference in serious internal affairs damascus insists it will continue to take all necessary steps to protect the country against chaos sirius already rejected an arab brokered peace plan calling for president assad to step down while the e.u. is impose more sanctions to further squeeze the regime but it's r.t. sarah further for it's ultimately the syrian people who end up there in the bronx. trying to shine a light on what's happening in the country the observer mission looks set to

continue now for another month but every day is proving more and more of a challenge for the people. due to the european sanctions conceded against syria we don't have any tourist we don't have any for nurse the e.u. has no one pays its eleventh consecutive round of sanctions this time putting a travel ban on people and businesses linked with the essential regime this we've been finding out the cascaded sanctions syria's struggling economy actually they are punishing the syrian people in a way or another i mean if they have governmental sanctions to be imposed that did business with the syrian government not with the people but the power is completely outside this door in the center of damascus at the moment and this is one of the main criticisms aimed at the economic sanctions is that this simply affecting the race is every day syrian people if i'm

a specific in this area now i depended upon these types of diesel generators that they needed. it is hard i think on an almost daily by people's lives to the not everyone can afford to back up at home with his wife and children and then says when the power cuts out the family simply have to make do generator is very expensive it costs like. sixty thousand three hundred pounds as i know it's not cheap and it's not just families and small businesses that are being affected oil production has fallen dramatically after an exports embark a and the cost of raw materials here has risen as one official from the chamber of commerce tells us a plummeting currency and rising prices have pushed many businesses to take their trade and money elsewhere in the business of money don't put all the money in the business keep somebody maybe outside maybe.

this is the. market because norm or cash money money for. and treat a recent form halfway through our interview the lights go out. oh. yeah. i have. but you will be stops. and one. will spike cools the dialogue it's been political and economic pressure on the country that's been favored in attempting to resolve the crisis the arab league observed in michigan has also made little headway safe then they say they were there simply to investigate and to reports there have been numerous calls for even more observers to be allowed into the country i think the real issue is that the syrians need to allow in a much much more neutral

a much more wide ranging a much more forceful international observer mission if they've got nothing to hide if it's if they're genuinely not killing innocent people then one of the go to the the sanctions impact is heavily contested is this need doubt that they are putting pressure on an increasingly isolated government many people in the country it will say made an already desperate situation even worse. r.t. damascus syria. and britain is also encouraging the arab league to press the u.n. security council into action on syria western states continue to accuse the regime of cracking down on peaceful demonstrators which it denies saying it's fighting insurgents funded from abroad political analyst. says the opposition is becoming increasingly violent. of course there are certain parts of the opposition that should share in the responsibility for the there are a good amount of syrians who are dedicated to peaceful demonstrations who have been

showing up on the streets and have been you know resisting calls to violence but then there are also many dangerous segments of the opposition who have used violence we see this as nation more and more especially over the last several months with a lot of weapons coming in through foreign borders to the opposition that's becoming increasingly militarized and carrying out some very devastating attacks on syrian infrastructure syrian government institutions the police so really right now we're seeing i think many western powers interested in fomenting unrest and syria and so they'll turn a blind eye to extreme weapons coming in through borders like lebanon in turkey to create these very militant very dangerous armed groups that are determined to create war and peace in syria ten minutes past the hour here in moscow you are with

still to come in the program one sided limits. very disappointing to. discuss the state the banks from the june. extradition to the u.s. charges of breaching copyright it's all down to a british or american treaty that's being slammed unbalanced. iran has apparently found a way to stay in business despite a new oil embargo and. india is reportedly agreeing to pay iran in gold for its oil instead of using u.s. dollars reports suggest that iran's biggest customer china could follow suit. reports from new delhi. india actually has already bought iranian oil using gold instead of u.s. dollars and this is extremely significant because every year india actually spends twelve billion u.s. dollars on iranian oil and now actually beijing is also saying that it might want

to jump on board with new delhi and also look into some sort of agreement with iran to continue to get oil new delhi and beijing actually account for forty percent of the imports of iranian oil the e.u. only counts for twenty percent obviously we've been talking about all week about this oil embargo that the e.u. announced on monday that they're hoping to roll out and put into place by chalabi first and obviously if new delhi and beijing find a way to continue trading with iran using gold instead of u.s. dollars this would severely hurt what the european union and washington is trying to do russia has also said that it wants to continue trading with the run using domestic car and seize instead of u.s. dollars obviously the point of the e.u. oil embargo would be to bring iran back to the negotiations table over its nuclear program obviously iran has consistently maintained that this is

a peaceful nuclear program the west believes that they are potentially developing nuclear weapons so in response to the e.u. is announcement on monday that it will place an oil embargo on iran and iran has said that it's going to shut the strait of hormuz which is actually where twenty to thirty percent of the world's oil supply shuttles through in the united states is that it will absolutely not allow that to happen even sort of alluding to the fact that it could potentially use military force to make sure that that strait stays open moscow has also said that i think sions are obsolete form of sort of punishing a country and that it's actually going to be counterproductive and another interesting thing to note here is that if beijing and new delhi continue to trade with iran with gold it's actually going to increase the value of gold and decrease the value of the u.s. dollar as the global reserve currency. i think it's pretty shrewd recording right there from new delhi where the let's get some more insight on this now and talk to christophe hoare still a government consultant and political analyst and in germany i thank you for coming

on r.t. today so as you would have heard in that report or india also says that a wants to buy as much iranian oil as it can so what is the point of the e.u. embargo if iran can just so easily find other buyers. well to be clear ari this is not in favor of european interests what we are doing there with this stupid and senseless and also wrong embargo and what we clearly see is that this happens upon washington's wishes so we have a few countries greece in the forefront with twenty five percent of its overall oil imports in two thousand and ten coming from iran but and then we have italy with thirteen spain with ten percent germany next to nothing with one point nine billion barrels per year so this is just i think one two percent of our overall imports. in this regard some of the europeans have problems fulfilling the embargo italy got

a total exemption because they are not you know paying cash to iran but iran is paying its debts to eat only by delivering ois so that will continue anyway is exempted from the whole of bargo greece has a special time of their frame main focus is not going on the oil embargo it's going on their debt crisis so we do have a lot of european mostly homemade problems now in addition to that we have problems with this oil embargo and as we see on the other hand in iran who do i just spoke to some of your renewed friends iran will do quite well even under the embargo that will also lead to nothing much we have heard the. rumors and we know that all of the present faithful customers to iran or you said like russia china india and many others to continue buying this oil and they were

find a way rest assured this is what the signal i get from tehran come let's just let's just get this straight here as you're suggesting this is a centrally a part of europe kalahari into washington's which is here you know. washington saying that an embargo on iranian oil will cripple the iranian economy here we have is you saying that this embargo will severely hurt the european union economy do you think the e.u. recognizes that cheaper and vast quantities of iranian oil will now go to two of the leading economies in the world that have china and india. they have very well aware of it i was personally present when the. economics minister of iran was talking to you know foreign society here in berlin and the gentleman said very openly to the shocked audience that ok you don't want to buy our goods where the chinese will do so that's that's what do you know happened in that situation that

there was you know blasting silence in the group and i think everybody here is a whiz so we have another ministers meeting in me scheduled with me that was already you know fixed when they fixed the decision of the embargo itself so maybe in may you know we have some kind of reversal i don't know i'm i'm not very sure in any case what we will have and that is very serious the military side of it so we had to have the. aircraft carrier groups passing in the persian gulf that is a serious story because from another ship helicopter carrier in this group attacks are flown on iran and they were thought to interrupt i do apologize we are running very low on time here as you say there is an international pressure building up in the in the arabian gulf there french american and israeli ships as well going in as well if i may very briefly here israel said recently that though iran continues to improve its nuclear capabilities it's not actually building nuclear weapons the

i.a.e.a. didn't present any proof that iran's nuclear program has a military slant why did the u.s. and europe continue to pressure iran. i think they do that for home consumption so i think they're in any case you know building a propaganda case to you know pacify the whole populations nobody in the word believes that the last report from i.e. a was in any way correct it was based on rumors on false and fabricated documents and i was there in vienna when the director general presented his paper and he said well we thought you know the pressure from this in nuclear program is building so we fired this report and in fact like this he explained why he was using this bad information which day his predecessor in this job very wisely had never used so

this is the situation we have with this fake report a bad report damaging report and a report which makes you know steps by the u.s. against iran more likely but that this is all show the real thing is america's and a high pressure it's bankrupt in a way they need more billions of dollars to be generated in as a steady flow in trade this is you know in fact being damaged by this embargo this is why it is really patently stupid even from the u.s. for your point of interests so for this kind of situation right now we have in fact military pressure building on iran and what they want to see regime change this is what they say this is not about oil it's not about a nuclear program it's about regime change they want a regime which is doing washington's wishes that the us are and what ever means they can throw in some who are desperate this time because of the bankruptcy of both the european system and the american system that is the situation we face we

face this urgency from the west and it's not based on you know affects us on the policy or wise counsel it's based on hectic affairs as you say economic warfare military pressure in the region ultimately i think all of it bottomed out of that a regime change or kristoff hostile government consultant political analyst i wish we had more time we don't thank you for coming on r.t. today. a u.k. student faces extradition to the u.s. for setting up a website giving people free access to movies online is not a crime in britain but in america he could get up to ten years in prison it's because of a controversial treaty between the two countries originally intended to extradite terrorist suspects but as artie's of a bennett reports the deal is putting many british citizens in an extremely vulnerable position. from running a website in his bedroom with links to pirated movies to up to ten years in a u.s.

federal prison richard o'dwyer is the latest victim of the u.k.'s controversial extradition treaty with america his actions aren't even a crime in britain but counters copyright infringement in the us for the judge that was enough for richard's mother it was devastating. perry's going to impact the gulf states i don't think that you rigid site t.v. shack was seized by u.s. authorities last year this is what you see on the home page now he didn't host any illegal videos itself but posted links to where users could find them u.s. prosecutors claim richard banked two hundred thirty thousand dollars in advertising revenue from the site although he's never been to america they claim his actions had direct consequences there did he been treated unfairly slightly. here because he was just pro extradition for well after it all about but i'm just going to go

with the other side anyway so. all that work that we. i know all the you were there when he's i'm not sure if you were there last time before when he said made a good strong argument but all went out the window completely. you know giving him no no we can't give up. power for. the u.k. u.s. extradition treaty was signed in two thousand and three supposedly to bring international terrorists to justice but many feel it's unfair to british citizens it makes it far easier for america to extradite someone from the u.k. than the other way around so far extraditions of five to two in america's favor veteran british m.p. simming campbell's leading a review of the treaty by his party the smaller partner in the governing coalition . what i argue for is that the position of a british citizen should be no worse than that of an american to and at the moment you think it's in bonds i'm in no doubt that it's an out of balance richer driers

a innocently caught up in something which was never intended to deal with people like him gary mckinnon is case is another that's left british m.p.'s crying out for change the asperger's sufferer has been fighting extradition for seven years he's wanted for hacking into pentagon files that he claims he was searching for evidence of u.f.o.'s a recent parliamentary debate on the treaty was so one sided in favor of changing it that a vote wasn't even needed but what's happening in there is still not enough to stop richard o'dwyer is pending extradition his case is certainly highlighted the need for something to be done but any changes could be too late for him his case is now in the hands of home secretary theresa may who has been accused of abandoning plans to change the treaty richard and his family will get the chance to appeal the decision at a higher court but their options are rapidly running out after bennett artsy london

. ok let's get to some other international news for you in brief this hour would be our three world update starting with iraq a wave of car bombings has killed fourteen and wounded seventy across the iraqi capital of the blasts occurred mainly in shia areas of baghdad threatening to revive sectarian conflict in the country violence has dipped in iraq for the past few years attacks are still common more than two hundred people have been killed in a month since the u.s. military withdrawal. another body has been recovered from the capsized cruise ship off italy's coast bringing the number of confirmed deaths to sixteen over a dozen are still missing more than ten days after the lineout run aground salvage crews are preparing to drain the vessels massive fuel tanks of half a million gallons of fuel and tons of diesel before it leaks into the sea. all right time now for the business with dimitri.

hello and welcome to business artsy the ruble hit its wendy's well against the dollar on tuesday number of factors are pushing and higher including stronger crude prices and shrinking liquidity in the banking sector to discuss the prospects for the currency i'm now joined in the studio by alexander if you're a senior economist. i was under always a pleasure to have you in the studio so what we're seeing right now is this a temporary bounce for the russian currency or does it have a long term trend here we think the first quarter i would say that you are really in the first quarter exports are strongly in for selo and this helps a lot so i would expect some more appreciation in going forward but then we came in the second half of the well we did see the ruble and the previous year over thirty two roubles for the dollar i've actually encountered in my personal experience if you go to a shop and you see some imported goods they've already been overpriced in just

a week right after the holidays now why we seeing these fluctuations. i think it's mostly capital flows and this capital flows tend to cause very short term movements in the rules and the fourth quarter was quiet but we were kept out of it was the highest. in the quarter so that would kind of target do you have for the ruble against the dollar it's all the end of the year there's nothing exciting thirty one or for the end of the year and pretty much for the year except for their small until they're that i described earlier this is a comfortable level for the central bank in order to see what's monetary policy you know i think the central banks policy is now designed so as they try to balance they kept all flows and current to go and there were boys in the pretty close to an equilibrium well when it comes to world of course you can't talk about the ruble without talking about oil or seeing right now as these tensions surrounding iran they're pushing the oil price higher this is supporting the ruble in turn but do

you think there may be one point when oil becomes too expensive for europe that it's going to hurt european economies and therefore you know it's going to have a negative effect for the russian economy you know of course no one benefits from lower global growth rate. so there should be for instance if all goes to one hundred fifty to two hundred of course it will be detrimental for the forest as well finally right now we're seeing a liquidity squeeze on the russian banking sector how much of a problem is that for the central bank should it be tackled i think the central bank is quite aware of it and last autumn they have been trying quite well to provide extra liquidity to banks leaves in the main fin also helped with deposits in banks and i actually think that it's a new reality to reach the banks have to adopt that central bank will be the provider over the quiddity for them going forward and that there will be less external liquidity available already so that if you're

a senior economist obviously because it all thank you so much for being with us in studio. and that's all we have time for in this edition of the business news and i'll see we will be back in fifty five minutes time with plenty more so do join us if you can of course headlines an excellent.

we have seen the damage it has done to a health environment more chemicals what the poor probs we do not want any more and no deal molds. our core system it's just there was a dismal experience and i'm just just appalled but that's allowed to go on for. eating this unfortunately because we don't know what's in it there's no labeling there for it being used by the board to the experiment to be used as guinea. pigs oh now we have more questions than we have had three guards mutants like.

if you're just joining us a very warm welcome to you live from moscow the headlines now. libya. loyalists retake their former stronghold of bani walid at least five people killed with clashes between supporters of. several all across the. gulf states withdraw observers from syria as the troubled country rejects a brokered peace plan calling for president assad to go meanwhile the e.u.

slaps more. reportedly finds a way to buy iran's oil. to pay for a black gold with. reports suggest iran. china could follow suit. next to an r.t. an in-depth look at the ongoing strife in the arab world and a few possible solutions sophie shevardnadze speaks to russia's main envoy to africa. that's next. chairman. also presidential.