there we were met by the free syrian army now have control of the area and they showed us around they took us into the center there was absolutely massive anti-government demonstration going on there's a funeral procession going on at the same time as well so we were able to speak to the people who were living in this area to speak to some of the free syrian army members as well because of course very little is known about who exactly these people are really have made it very very clear to us just how divided the country is now becoming whilst we were that there was sort of a moment of confusion we did hear gunshots in the background some of the crowd got nervous and started running which for we we were all sort of told to it was it was safer to leave and we then left that area a very tense situation certainly a very dangerous situation for the civilians in this area as well you gave these suburbs you can see bullet holes in the walls it's not really clare and so much of the culture of who exactly has control of the fact that this is now happening in

a suburb just fifteen minutes will say from the city center here in damascus where he goes to show you just how much the situation here is now deteriorating or russia has made its decision extremely clear that they're not going to back the western resolution was it doesn't rule out the sanctions the military intervention they've put their own proposal forward and you've had this sort of back and forth with neither sides really being able to come to some form of agreement i mean the big sticking point here really is the military intervention because so many different factions in the country it is even more still here in the country very very hard to really understand who exactly is in charge where he was the voice of the people because this is a originally a peaceful protest movement even now got increasingly armed opposition groups and there's reports today that saudi arabia that could target has said that they're going to be backing the opposition and providing. funding and this is where they

are the last thing that anyone wants to see here at the main is that this conflicts that become even more even more violent because the daily death toll is you know just devastatingly high at the moment talking to the people in this suburb today they were extremely animation you know the people here in this country have lost all sense of safety all sense of security let's get some insight now from jonathan steele foreign correspondent also has for britain's guardian newspaper joining us on the line of london mr steele we just heard from our correspondent in that report from syria how frightening the situation is but of course beyond the physical violence we're also witnessing the worsening economic situation too as a result of international sanctions what do you think is the solution well i think the solution hopefully would be dialogue between the government opposition forces although as your correspondent pointed out it's hard to know who the opposition is it's not very fragmented and spread around different parts of the country but i

think the arab league plan of this week of march two steps forward one step back two steps forward in that it did push for a political as opposed to a military solution to push for dialogue which means the opposition also has to take part in dialogue because you can destroy one side dialogue i think where it fell down was in predicting not the solution or prescribing what the solution should be just simply saying assad should go and create a government of national unity under the vice president i think it's much better to have an opening to dialogue rather than tell people what the result is going to be before those story is interesting you say you're too so for one but this is going on for so long are we any closer to dialogue two people getting around the table and talking really though as we head into a new year. well we'll it's interesting to see what the u.n. security council will do obviously russia is pushing very much for dialogue because the western powers are pushing much more for a move of assad as they've been doing for several months and they've been very

resistant to the idea of dialogue so whether a compromise can be found in which the west do it does accept to put some pressure on the opposition to for dialogue is is the open question i don't have much faith that they will do that i think there will be a standoff at the u.n. and the military situation will continue to deteriorate you repeatedly written your column that you think the west should support the call for dialogue before it becomes too late too late and shouldn't take sides you think is still taking sides yes they are because as i say the arab league plan which was the saudi initiative but i'm pretty sure it was coordinated with western governments in advance still calls on our side to go but politically they just say he should resign handed over to the vice president and the government of national unity so they're still insisting over personalizing the situation and of this one man house but it's much more complicated than just saying one man in the square there has to be massive political reform has to be

a good deal of economic reform that includes well has to be fight against corruption etc and we have to know much more clearly what the opposition is proposing just very valse of just been hiding behind this line of assad must go without really putting forward a plan that would satisfy the whole large number of people in silent majority who worried about civil war and worried about revenge from the opposition because they may be perceived as having been. in the in the good years jonathan syria of course not trusting the arab league saying they are oblique as far as it sees it is trying to prepare the ground for foreign intervention in syria and those fears justified. well i mean the foreign intervention it was qatar who said that there should be arab troops going in but that really was a script nobody really took that up i think the the arab league if they're thinking about more and more about foreign intervention are still hoping for the west to be . the people who do it but they're still not really coming out one hundred percent

of that talking more about sanctions and this political pressure on assad to resign jonathan steele thanks ever so much for thoughts foreign correspondent and columnist with britain's guardian newspaper thank you. polish protesters are gathering in front of the presidential palace in water source part of a week of rallies after the government signed up to in a tourist international web piracy pac earlier and page they had told the anonymous hacker group masks to show their content. is fully what's happening for us in warsaw same again today alexy as people taking their grievances to the top though today had a term and are they to stop. well they're looking very determined here in central warsaw despite it it's absolutely freezing out here it's almost minus fifteen degrees centigrade there are several thousand people here already and we are expecting more because people are coming in basically every every minute they are here to protest the protest against act the anti cons of the trade agreement which

poland signed on thursday along with twenty one other european member states european union member states and it is here in poland in fact the only country in the e.u. where protests have been having very strong movement here in fact tens of thousands of people have been protesting over the past three or four days everywhere across poland we went to a little town of lubin on thursday and even there where the population are roughly exceeds one hundred thousand people almost three thousand of three or four thousand people hit the streets in protest against act clearly people in poland are unhappy with the fact that their government signed this document they believe that it would be used against regular internet users to police the web to block websites for harmless actions and their message to the only the clear message that these people are having here in the crowd is no internet censorship they get the rally here this

particular rally is now slowly have starting to have some political overtones with some of the people here protesting against the current government but still the majority of the people are against act like so they say don't worry that the. the people behind you there this legislation has been secretly in the works for a number of years now why are we only seeing protests about it though in poland do you think it is not just poland that signed up to it is it. certainly as i said it's twenty one even member states which signed for it the the document will become effective in all the countries once their parliaments ratified and the european parliament something something this these people here are hoping for because even the polish authorities have now taken a step back and they say that the rich occasion will not necessarily happen as it had been predicted by many experts and the european in fact there's been a scandal in the european parliament already with a french deputy in the european parliament already resigning because of actors saying that this was all

a buffet made and very and serious document essentially actor is about protecting intellectual property from music and books to different designer clothes and pharmaceuticals but the people here protesting in poland they are afraid that big corporations would be able to close down websites for let's say harmless links to videos or t.v. shows or movies or something which most of the users in the internet do on every day basis so they think that this document will be misused by big corporations and by the authorities and the whole already have been several examples of that this document act has a striking resemblance to the sopa bill in the united states which caused several online giants like we kill leagues and google to have their own form of protest so clearly the warsaw protests are the only ones in europe so far but we could be seeing more more rallies and more protest actions across europe as the parliament's face the rich occasion of act in the new era several weeks lectures are scary so

europe correspondent thanks have so much for bringing us up to date. a few minutes from now the euro undergoes financial forensics in switzerland. the housing have not gad. in this without that the diverse world economic forum to its friday thought out the highs and lows of the global economy deeply in trouble and if you are of the eurozone we'll have more coming up. we will have more florida just a bit next though iran could cut off its oil supplies to europe as early as next week when a radio m.p.'s signal the when they could flick the switch was part of it no preparing to debate it on sunday it's to preempt the e.u. embargoed set to start in july which is designed to force around into talks over its nuclear work to repeatedly of course said in recent weeks that it is ready to do just that but the u.s. now says it first wants around to prove its atomic program is peaceful nuclear inspectors to do there in the coming days try and work that out no way to talk to us in new york is around me from ministry macro advisors which is

a global policy and economic consultancy such good to see you tonight which we start the iran is trying to take the bull by the holmes it looks like doesn't it but can it afford at the end of the day really to lose six months oil revenue from europe. yeah hi kevin thank you very much for having me back on i think that's exactly. the question here and the calculus from iran's perspective is going to be if they were to by cutting exports before the july first date that has set for cutting exports and iran preemptively cuts as you know three four hundred thousand barrels worth exports to the e.u. will it be able to drive prices up enough by doing that to offset for that and so there is a chance that they might make that calculus and they may decide to do that anyways i would not rule it out because you know right now what is going on with iran is

that they there is an existential threat to the government given everything that's happening in the local iranian economy and they are very desperate right now so you think they'll fight to have cornered ok i'm going to run say europe has more to lose from the all in bugger than a rod do you see it that way. well you know ultimately iran has clearly has more to lose by the by not just the european oil embargo but even more importantly the embargo on the financial institutions and the central bank which has really started here in washington in the u.s. and as really really hampered iran's ability to conduct financial transactions they have managed to work around it with china and with india right now but that has made a huge huge dent it's caused a massive panic in the iranian economy fishel rate for the currency is down you

know they just revalue devalued by eight percent but it's dropped forty percent in the last month and this is before the sanctions are even come in so what is happening in iran is a fundamental threat and exit existential threat to the regime to the republic regime and quite frankly from the u.s. perspective i don't think there's a lot of hope that these sanctions will actually get iran to stop its nuclear program think the real unwritten objective here is quite frankly in and call it by different name but it's regime change ultimately they want to put in as much pressure that as they can on on this government if this did all kick off one country course looking very closely as israel and the recently israeli intelligence reports a gloomy saying that iran's threats of attack retaliation are a bluff so the consequences wouldn't be as catastrophic as widely believed what you think israel saying that. well it's very much in israel's

interest to you know play the bad cop there you know they call this the good cop bad cop act between the u.s. and israel then israel obviously has a lot more to lose than the u.s. and so it does feel much more cornered so there is a very real threat i'm not diminishing they're very real desire to rattle the cage and scare the iranians as much as they can but part of this is also in order to keep the heat on the iranians as much as they can and say look we're not we're not scared and that the actually the military strike by israel is something that you should take seriously and should not take off the table hence come to the negotiating negotiating table quite frankly as far as israel's military capabilities there is an active debate. on how much damage take they could do at this point especially given that iran has put some of enrichment facilities deep underground for no facility is is is is very

deep underground and so the israel that israel increasingly needs the u.s. on its side and of from a military perspective i just want to program tonight. money from revises that live from new york appreciated. we keep an eye on developments around iraq and the other world flashpoints of course with our t. dot com many other stories there as well for you russia's political playing field we're talking about online tonight the election boss refuting claims of parliamentary poll violations while the short list is announced as to who's running for president of course all the latest developments in the build up to it of course in our politics section of r.t. dot com land them when you saw the be. very pleased with something we did the nature. nature giving norway a light travel look at those pictures aurora borealis sit back enjoy the show with the most spectacular northern lights displays in a long time it's because of that burst from the sun a lot of the wakes are to dot com when are you chief channel two great pictures

there. libya's new government is being accused of torture and abuse in detention centers from cheers suspending its mission in misrata right now saying it's repeatedly treating patients for injuries sustained during interrogation with thousands of gadhafi loyalists and bars it's raising key questions about the people that nato helped bring to power is out his. doctors without borders known for going do their job in the most dangerous and notorious places around the globe but in n.t.s.c. iran libya the group has encountered a formidable obstacle they couldn't overcome burns from electric shocks and cigarettes heavy bruising and renal failure all this evidence of the continued to churn of prisoners say the doctors and now after two inmates died from beatings the international group has stopped its mission in protest. patients were brought to us

in the middle of interrogation for medical care in order to make them fit for further interrogation this is an acceptable our rule is to provide medical care to war casualties and sick detainees not to repeatedly treat the same patients between torture sessions the news comes amidst rising anger with libya's interim government demonstrations in benghazi last week ended with the resignation of a high ranking member of the m.t.c. in the former gadhafi stronghold of bani walid locals pushed out their terms it's not council forces claiming systematic abuse it started with the very beginning of the rebellion very beginning of the insurrection the second day of the rebellion on eighteenth of february the african migrants were rounded up locked in a detention center and burnt to death and the n.p.c. expressed support for this time and this is part of the strategy of the west you know divide and rule and that was given the green light of the torture and

execution that we're seeing now so this is a clear recipe for civil war meanwhile the nato operation that brought the m.t.c. to power is by itself raising question is. a high profile international team of human rights activists has been to leave here to investigate some of may two that it bears entity of were with their evolution in the throngs and there were guiding the air raids and they addicting them and court of dating them if you are mandated. the perfect view that. it is very very accurate in a way that i myself saw the killing of so many people in front of more my eyes i saw the killing of fifty one people in front of my eyes the youngest was fifteen years old and while all sides in the live in conflict are to blame for violence and

violations the human rights activists claim not all of them have been held responsible for their wrongdoings investigating what happened during libya's seven months civil war and the nato campaign to protect civilians this fact of the mission discovered again crimes against humanity but the goal was not to judge but to shed light on what happened and not to repeat the mistakes the recent united nations report has reviewed that up to eight thousand supporters have been held by militia groups in libya right now and with numerous occasions of torture and revenge killings throughout the country hopes of a new beginning for libya are fading quickly. r.t. . the delegates in davos are got the money on the table today as the world economic forum assesses the dollar the euro in the one and the struggling eurozone in the future of heavily indebted greece is inevitably on the cards as well of course with

cautious optimism and sharp criticism alike laura mysteries in davos for us. we heard from a number. also from vice president of the economic and monetary affairs for the european commission we heard them all speak today in a panel and strike an optimistic note that they believe that things will be resolved now many people would disagree with that but as far as the people on stage . and was confident that the greek bondholders will come to an agreement on greek debt write downs and haircuts this week and that's kind of what made the major headline and also believing that the fiscal compact the tighter fiscal compact for the eurozone will come together and a meeting on monday and that would impose of course fines for people that are countries rather break the deficit and debt ceiling rules we saw today that spain their unemployment rate came out a seventeen year high of twenty two point eighty five percent the finance minister from spain says that this is the biggest issue facing the spanish economy and we

know spain is one of the largest economies in europe also a lot of disagreement over euro zone solutions we've seen george soros we've seen david cameron we've seen some finance ministers to timothy geithner say a larger fire wall is needed basically saying more bailout funds need to be committed from angela merkel's remarks we heard earlier this week she was trying to convince people that europe would be fine without pledging more money timothy geitner we did hear from today the u.s. treasury secretary i thought was pretty interesting he said that the two biggest issues facing the u.s. economy that will determine its outcome are what happens in the euro zone and whether or not the u.s. congress can agree on some short term solutions for the u.s. economy i thought this was quite interesting because although yes the eurozone economy very much weighs on the united states i've heard from italian economists for example that year and the u.s. they're much more pessimistic about europe and maybe part of that is coming from the fact that it is an easy scapegoat for u.s. politicians to say oh what's going on in the u.s.

is dependent on europe when in reality the u.s. has some major problems of its own a major debt overhang. blick fed has been very active in trying to reflate the economy but unaffected unaffected does bar high unemployment more than sixteen percent for people that either don't have work or want more work you know these are some real issues that the euro zone has nothing to do it and a congress that is bitterly divided in an election year is not likely to pass much so some real concerns that are being addressed here. probably still to be talked about will from law of the company accounting just over ten minutes as well as the deals from davos the show his from a former american fed chairman about whether he thinks it's time for the federal reserve to go as devil's to talk with a bit of the business no surprise i guess with the tree right now. and i'd welcome to business out see the devil see canonic for is displaying signs of a split personality this year the likes of the i.m.f. david cameron and george soros warning of potential catastrophes well on the other

side a number of heavyweights and dusters who think much of the rescue work has been done among them is under the course and the head of russia's second largest bank. there was a practical discussions on for example the introduction of new regulations for. banks and financial sector. with the lead it was on the of course it will take maybe two to three years to implement it but at least there's not just general debate some very practical things which now being discussed though there's still debate on the future of europe. a lot has been it's a lot of discussions already happened between the politicians and it looks not of the common solution they are much closer than it was one or two years ago. and the sale of a state owned stake in russia's largest lenders burbank may take place this year

deputy chairman of russia's central bank says the government is counting on the price of around one hundred rubles around three dollars a share the state is selling a seven point six percent stake in the. russian government is the mulling raising taxes for business first deputy prime minister says it should be done in a way that will boost regional development while having a minimum impact on corporate growth. you know. say please don't do this because you know each percent you raise them it slows down the economy so to speak and be there. so there is no you know the best recipe so relieved to find the perfect balance for this is possibly we could raise the tea and to split and maybe. where we collect from you know create sticks will provide for original purposes. and russia's markets and it friday's session on

a negative now it's as you grow from the u.s. came in short of expectations but overall the week was a very positive for the arts yes gaining point seven percent over five sessions now a quick look at the main movers in friday's session on the my sax is burbank did better than the markets up around half a percent on news about its privatization and you may just losing ground despite strong growth world price gazprom is down and the m.k. is also declining as the market was unimpressed with a seven percent production increase in twenty that. the market was generally pretty flat after quite a strong day yesterday the market in general is up about two and a half percent this week from monday almost say four and a half percent in the last two weeks things look pretty healthy of the moment underneath the general strengthening the market is some secular taishan people who are investors appear to be selling oil and gas names and are buying more banking

names with names like a sperm bank and also in particular or even second tier banks and so for now i'm back starting the headlines with kevin to stay with us.

he. leaves he. says. play.

play lead. keeping updates neither of our teams kevin i mean these are our top stories syrian opposition fighters tightly controlled in damascus just fifteen minutes from the center. for a closed door talks about resolution which backs arab league calls to get president assad to go we'll update you on that throughout the evening other stories we're following for you libya's new leaders face accusations of torture doctors without

borders pull out of a key city saying the same patients keep returning interrogation it's raising key questions among human rights groups about the people who helped. and crowds gather outside the polish presidential palace as people take there and get to the top over the online anti piracy pact which threatens regular internet users and a french. quit over again story we're following closely more aligned twenty four seven it are. now the money merry go round in focus for the next thirty minutes as we get the lowdown from the mountaintops force and a former american federal reserve chairman questioning whether the fed should still be around these days is artie's capital account just moments away.