as more. in the last few days the situation has been very tense and dangerous and with. the number of anti government protests and clashes between the pro-government forces and the forces loyal to the ousted leader more medical duffey taken place in different towns all across the bit risks are indeed very high that the country may fall into civil war most of all and the most deadly incident happened in the town of bani walid. southeast of the capital tripoli once known as duffy's main stronghold the forces loyal to the full mcconnell khadafi 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 symbolize in khadafi the toughest ruling as far as the local officials have been reclusive least five national transitional council people have been killed the same day the libyan justice minister announced that the

international criminal court had allegedly agreed to let say for the song to duffy's son to be tried in leaving and on the leave when new although it hasn't been confirmed by the i.c.c. itself judge ellis say that the violence and this announcement may be connected just hours later violence erupted in other parts of the country in the eastern part in the town of been goes he wants known as the rebel stronghold and later on we've been hearing about the volunteers around street for the around the capital they've said so several checkpoints around tripoli following the clashes reporters there but also we can see that then 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 haul them to escalate further. we've seen that for when for. just in bengazi when people have been demonstrating against. the empty seat

the science is trying to take control of the situation but unfortunately so far with little success. meanwhile human rights groups in the middle east accuse nato of war crimes carried out in libya during last year's war investigative journalist simon to solve says many libyans feel they are not getting what they were fighting for the thing about revolutions is they're not simply passive events there is a whole awakening of a population in the middle east but also libya and people saying well this is not what we have not prizing for the victims themselves you know the victims the new victims the old supporters of the old regime saying well you talk about democracy where is our inclusion in this so you get the sense there is this fracturing the new electoral law is very. going to put it has made people very very unhappy it seems there's a reintroduction of tribalism and touching as networks and so on and so you know. that there is a lot of disquiet in every corner of libya at the moment it's

a truism that there's no such thing as a clean war and civil war is the most brutal affairs and so you so you can imagine . nato but i don't need to imagine nato really pushed the envelope and they broke the resolution they were there to defend civilians that was the mandate and they when they essentially became the rebel the rebels air force and so they were attacking in the the all you know almost total annihilation of very messy very brutal and i think there's quite a lot of acts of revenge taking place as well. damascus has agreed to allow the arab league to extend its syria monitoring mission to the country by a month this comes as six gulf nations pull out there are observers frustrated at what they see as the government's lack of commitment to the peace process the saudi dominated gulf cooperation council also wants the u.n. security council to put on 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 interference and its internal affairs damascus insists it will continue to take all necessary steps to protect the country against chaos syria's already rejected a recent arab league proposal that calls for president assad to cede power to his deputy and form a national unity government on top of this the e.u. has imposed yet more sanctions to further pressure the regime but as sara firth reports it's the syrian people who are bearing the brunt. 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 here is proving more and more of a challenge for the people. due to the european sanctions in syria to argue syria we don't have any tourist we don't have any for most of 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 assad regime but as we've

been finding out the cascade of sanctions has swamp syria's struggling economy actually they are going to shiva syrian people in a way or another i mean if they have governmental sanctions to be imposed by big business with the syrian government not with the people but the power is completely outside of this door and the central damascus at the moment and this is one of the main criticisms aimed at the economic sanctions is that this simply affecting the way so every day syrian people in fact most businesses in this area now depended upon these types of diesel generators that are needed because our dad had become an almost daily part of people's lives there the not everyone can afford the back up at home with his wife and children and then says when the power cuts out the family simply have to make do the generator is very expensive it costs like.

sixty thousand trillion 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 true to recent form halfway through our interview the lights go out. oh. yeah.

i have. been with you who. stops. two hours of spy cools the dialogue is being political and economic pressure on the country that's been favored in attempting to resolve the crisis the arab league observers mission 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 the the sanctions impact is heavily contested is this new doubt that they are putting pressure on an increasingly isolated government that many people in the country it will say made an already desperate situation even worse.

damascus syria. could start paying iran to end gold for its crude oil purchases that is according to israeli website file the move as an attempt to work around the same actions imposed by the west over to iran's nuclear program effectively bypassing the freeze on iran central bank assets and as priya sridhar reports china could follow. 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 the 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 chill live 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 worth 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 it's actually going to be counterproductive 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. president obama is giving his annual state of the union address to congress right now the speech is widely considered as you can see here live pictures as the unofficial launch of his reelection campaign for more on this we can cross now to washington d.c. and our team ken president obama is kicking off his political agenda for the year in his state of the union address what's he really likely to talk about is this going to be similar to an election address well karen this is president obama's

last state of the union address before he runs for reelection so he's facing the nation with the most important issues of the day his goal is to highlight his achievements and and to lay out new promises but president obama is facing very skeptical audience very in congress as well as among the american people social inequality america is now at a level on c since the great depression the top one percent of wealthiest in the country are making a killing while the middle class is shrinking dramatically and that gap is getting wider the president talks about it constantly and he's expected to raise the same issues in his state of the union address as well but the fact that almost all of his economic initiatives got bogged down in congress like the jobs act that he put forward last year is giving a sense to many that while he might be saying all the right words yet they might might not always be might not necessarily be followed by deeds well with syria and

libya still gripped by a conflict how do you think he's going to approach foreign policy. well karen on the foreign policy front he ran on promises to end wars while he pull troops out of the rack and started winding down the war in afghanistan with a pledge to pull to bring all troops home by two thousand and fourteen america's wars didn't stop president obama bombed libya last year to the tune of bringing about democracy there living much of the country's infrastructure destroyed and its future very much alarmed me the u.s. may now be on the verge of an all out confrontation with iran the obama administration's strategy of cornering iran with crippling sanctions might lead to a military conflict which would have catastrophic consequences for the region washington is now actively building up its military presence in the persian gulf region fifteen thousand troops dispatched to kuwait is one of the latest steps new u.s. drone bases are popping up in the arabian peninsula so we see that while president

obama went through with the promises to scale back on iraq and afghanistan he's been actively building up platform or possibly new wars there's almost no doubt that he's state of the movie in his state of the union address he's going to bring up america's mission to hunt down terrorists globally president obama certainly prides himself on his role in killing osama bin laden last year and a number of other terrorists there but the means by which the u.s. is going about that task of raised a lot of red flags for example there is a crisis in the u.s. pakistan relations right now because pakistanis are even fury aided by u.s. strikes which really civilians and as it happened recently their own pakistani soldiers so some experts argue that what washington is doing is fighting terror and provoking terror at the same time if you don't mind i'll go back to the speech and i'll get back to you shortly with more from what president obama said certainly will be interesting to see how the presidential race will develop in the coming

months that was artie's a guy and it can from washington thank you guy and i will be with you shortly. the u.k. student may spend up to ten years in an american federal prison he faces extradition to the u.s. for setting up a website that gave people links to access free movies on line something that's not even considered a crime in britain it's all due to a u.k. u.s. treaty originally intended to extradite terrorist suspects but as artie's over bennett reports many think of the deal as undermining the rights of british citizens. 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 u.s. for the judge that was enough for richard's mother it was devastating. carry

it. back to live with you richard 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 banks two hundred thirty thousand dollars in advertising revenue from the site although he's never been to america they claim his actions had a direct consequence is there to be treated unfairly slightly. here because he was just pro extradition well i've heard all about but i'm just going to go with the other side anyway so. all that work that we. do with there when you i'm not sure if you were there last time before we started a good strong argument but all went out the window completely. you know giving a no no we can't go. to the. 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 balance i'm in no doubt that it's out of bounds richard dryers are innocently caught up in something which was never intended to deal with people like 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 but 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 either bennett artsy london. some more world news in brief for you this hour the international monetary fund has warned that the global economy is in grave danger from a eurozone spill over europe is said to be headed for a mild recession this year which the i.m.f. says will cause

a worldwide financial slowdown and even emerging markets will not be immune meanwhile trading has been volatile because of worries that the deal with greece's private investors may fall through. egypt is to a partially lifted decades long state of emergency a year after the start of the popular uprising that president mubarak but the draconian laws will still be applied in cases of what's described as thuggery rights groups claim that will still mean extensive police powers remain allowing them to justify cracking down on demonstrators. a wave of car bombings has killed fourteen and wounded more than seventy across the iraqi capital the blast happened mainly in the shia areas of baghdad threatening to revive sectarian conflict in the country no violence has dipped in iraq for the past few years attacks are still common more than two hundred people have been killed there in a month since the u.s. military withdrawal. coming up next an in-depth look at the ongoing strife in the

arab world and a few possible solutions parties so if you seven months he speaks to russia's main all boy to africa mikhail margelov.

you know my deal chairman of the foreign affairs committee of russia's federation culson also presidential envoy to africa it's great to have you with us thank you for having me here so we'll start from the latest news and leave me out in the country has been swept with violent protests and government crisis you as an expert at what is your version what's going on has nato led to lock receive failed in the country last been to tripoli it was on the twenty first of december last year. i had the chance to meet with all the main players with the most awful drug and with the prime minister with the foreign minister with the oil and gas minister and i spent the whole day in tripoli and i still have a feeling that i was in a very fragmented city three or four militias hating each other competing with each other sometimes shooting each other and it seems like the pieces of. political puzzle the mob get together how to we see it live get back to each has to take time and that has to take goodwill from all the sides which were involved in

a very long lasting conflict which to my personal opinion was a real civil war and in some areas of libya of this civil war is not over in the south there is the whole desert area as an area of well to the certain extent no man's land it's out of control of. new governmental forces it's zone of tribes it's a zone all of controlled arms trafficking so i think that the difficult time fully b.-a will last for quite a significant period of time if we view the political elite is not ready to sit at the round table that's actually which russia was proposing last summer which ever going to union was proposed. last summer which the president of south africa jacob zuma will be proposing on the twenty ninth and thirtieth of january in a disability that's the african union summit african union summit to my mind may play a very positive role in putting that roundtable in the center of tripoli or any other

libyan city in order to inspire the process of national reconciliation but that's all political talk if you look at the last five of an ordinary libyan guy was he better off before or now before the ordinary libyan guy it's very difficult to say because there are ordinary libyan guys and big guys the ordinary libyan guys in tripoli and ordinary libyan guys and desert living with that tribes and these are very different ways of living some people when you talk to them and dream about a so-called dubai scenario they want to see libya as a mediterranean resort with five star hotels because you know isn't all that stuff but some people love thinking about the purity and islamic identity there are so many competing different points of view you could probably see today that you can find in libya even within one family total unanimity of views what are the chances that his son safe islam will actually get a fair trial

a lot will depend on that that would show the new face of libya actually i think that he will be in the government and the new libyan judicial system should show that it really share is the values of human rights rule of law and democracy in the new libya and that was my message when i was talking to. the lead in tripoli on the twenty first of december i also asked him about the initiative of the i.c.c. in hague to bring the case of a system nation of warmer khadafi to international criminal court actually his response was a very reserved and after that they said that it's very important to show to the international community that you leave. does not have anything in common with the previous regime let's talk about syria now that's been top news for a while now what makes syria different from other countries that have been subject to the. arab spring and at this point how big is

assad's support base because we don't hear much about that syria is different because syria is a cornerstone for political settlement in the middle east the geostrategic of syria is sorry to say that but don't want to insult anybody but it's more important the more crucial than geostrategic role for the international stability of many other countries were covered by so-called arab spring that's why dealing with syrian peace we have to play political chess but not american football can i ask you about the arab league i mean isn't it are they in a position to actually make demands such as i said ship step down isn't their role really to mediate rather than i demand anything like that but i think that their role is to mediate that's what the secretary general is saying and that's what he's proposing no to mediate to build bridges what is important to mention here is that we are protecting syria but not the syrian regime we are protecting syria as the

country we are protecting syria as a nation we want to help syrian people and syria as a country so you bring up a very important point because at this point if you look at it from the outside it does look like a full fledged war that's been going on for a while do you think a regime change in syria in order to protect the syrian people it's reasonable i seriously think that today the syrian political elite has to understand that the civil war will not lead to any political solution it will produce more blood from both sides it will produce more hatred and it will make national reconciliation more and more difficult. i think that's always syrian friends from all the camps involved in this fight should look at iraq a scenario should look at the libyan example should look at other sad examples spender's lawman world and other set examples in africa we seriously think of that

the civil war can all be a political solution thank you very much thank you so much indeed. the be. easy of nature and discover its beauty. and. a communicate with the want to. test yourself and become free. and. see what nature can give you.

please. just simply. just say it's the book. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so for sleep you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew. our program is a big. thanks

for being with us on top of the hour here is a quick look at your headlines loyalists of the late leader moammar gadhafi a polish m.t.c. authority in the town of bani walid saying that the administration of the area is now in their hands this comes just a day after a bloody battle between transitional council forces and local militias claimed at least five lives. damascus greenlights an extension to the arab league mission in

syria on this comes as the six gulf states withdraw their support questioning the regime's commitment to the peace plan meanwhile the e.u. has extended its economic going travel same sions as well as targeting twenty two individuals connected to the government. and that will do nicely reports emerge that iran is accepting a gold missed payment for its oil exports effectively bypassing the latest round of sanctions imposed by the us and europe china could be the next country to follow in india's footsteps. and in the us looking at live pictures now president obama is giving his annual state of the union address to congress with the president focusing on the economy and the country's involvement in foreign wars. as the world's economists get together for their annual forum and switzerland the summit's founder warns that capitalism is out of balance max and stacey pick that up and run with it that's the cause report coming up next.