all right in a moment is the business with katie but for now e.u. leaders are gathering for the first summit of two thousand and twelve with. greece still the center of discussion the pressure is still on athens to overhaul its a corner me with the german finance minister warning it won't receive just a second financial lifeline if it doesn't. reports from brussels they're supposed to talk more about the fiscal compact they had agreed upon at the last summit as well as push for the european stability mechanism which is the permanent bailout fund they will put in place now in june instead of july these are the official informal topics that greece is still having over their heads especially since there have been war of words between greece and germany with the germans are calling for moving taxing and spending power over to brussels and the german finance minister saying that the europeans are willing to support greece as long as greece actually implements the this issuance instead of just talking about it all the greeks had

responded to that with a lot of that still to be saying that this is definitely out of the question especially since this is a matter of national sovereignty and one former economist who's now the greek education minister had actually called it quote unquote a product of a sick imagination so you can you can tell that the greeks are definitely upset with the german suggestion now why did the german suggested this is because of that ongoing talks between the greeks and their creditors it's still dragging it's been stalling for some time now the greeks need to strike a deal with the private sector and their creditors asking the banks for example to write down some of the greek back to take some losses about fifty to sixty percent of losses and this is in order for greece to get the second tranche of its bailout which it needs to pay some debts in march because if they don't they will technically default now as the e.u. leaders are getting ready for the summit belgium where this is out there in brussels it's on a general strike a lot of walking and cycling today because all of the metro. one of the airports is

also closed the unions are protesting against the government cutting their benefits slashing retirement age also raising the retirement age rather so they're complaining that the workers are bearing the brunt of prices are not getting. reported she's keeping her twitter stream updated on the flu developments in brussels. the city is largely because of the general strike and people have to walk or cycle to get around. the program some are refusing to rule out europe wide strikes in the near future. twenty minutes past the hour here in moscow or other pre-election promises coming

thick and fast in russia less than five weeks before the presidential poll prime minister and presidential hopeful vladimir putin outlined his program to reform the country's economy in his third pre-election article you go to points. this article has already been deemed by many analysts as a whole list of little reforms proposed by the prime minister on the economy first of all was going to says he wants to see the role of the state and of state monopoly is reduced for example gas from which as quite an influence on our russia's business like secondly the fight against corruption especially in the sphere of high level kickbacks during state orders and purchases more attention is needed to be paid there as well now another major problem for the economy of hoarding for the prime minister is a dependency on natural resources which has to be reduced as well and which and says that if these issues would be dealt with successfully it should improve the

investment climate in the country and increase the economies competitiveness against other international players there is also another point worth mentioning from that article and that is the idea to propose the tax which should concern the v.a.p. real estate and other a luxury purchases an issue which has been and is still being discussed in the russian society for quite some time now. not easy going to piss going off reporting what i do stay with us here on r.t. our business bulletin with katie is coming your way in a few minutes with more detailed analysis of lot of me who didn't proposals however for you i'll get to that let's get to the r.t. world update now some other international news from around the world we will start with nigeria where the terrorist organization is suspected of attacking a police station in the northern city of kano a gunman opened fire and threw explosives killing two civilians in the years old

over the weekend the organization distributed leaflets around the city warning residents of more attacks on security services ten days ago carried out multiple blasts in kano which left almost two hundred people dead. pakistani doctor is waiting to see whether he'll be put on trial for assisting the u.s. in its raid on osama bin laden's compound dr shockey afridi helped the cia collect d.n.a. samples from residents in up with about to check if the al qaeda leader was there last week u.s. defense secretary leon panetta publicly acknowledged the doctor provided key data ahead of the operation. up on a florida highway has left ten people dead and a dozen others with authorities are trying to find out what triggered the horrific crash witnesses say the drivers were blinded by. smoke from a fire that may have been started intentionally it's a dozen cars and trucks were. quite

a reminder of our headlines and other news coming your way shortly here on artsy that will be after the latest business with katie. thank you rory our welcome to the business today as we've just been hearing vows made putin has outlined the changes he thinks need to be made to the russian economy putin recognizes the need to diversify away from all materials reduce state control over business and improve the investment climate checker off for. capital believes the country needs to act now to avoid future budget problems. they'll be strong mockery economic and political economy incentives for pushing shit your return as a president to be march more reform oriented and much more proactive in introducing and implementing just kind of reforms this is an idea that we've been trying to

advance your address and scrap it all russia is already running significant fiscal deficits based on our estimates in two three years' time russia will start drawing current account deficits these deficits will need to be financed somehow therefore it is you really it will be imperative for direction economy to change and i think of putting understands that i think that he would like to ensure that russia's image as an investment destination has changed a little bit and i think there are enough incentives for us to assume that you might be a little bit more broad reform oriented in his term as a president of course if he if he wins their elections. the prime minister has been taking a hands on approach to business a monday a new state of the art train car production plant in russia's northwest the billion dollar facility will produce thirty thousand wagons a year to meet the growing demand for well freight and full face of soviet era cars that make up most of the country's rolling stock ride let's have

a look at those mark as oil traders are cautious ahead of the european union summit in brussels later on monday even tensions with iran are failing to boost the prices iran's deputy foreign minister said crude could reach one hundred fifty dollars a barrel if an e.u. comes into force in july this is now the w.t. i's point seven percent down and the branches just managed to creep its way into positive territory that. u.s. stocks are sharply down minutes after the bell media of course greece would not accept supervision of its budget decision as a condition that i use both the dow jones and the nasdaq are losing ground. up a cent each and on to the x. the market is european bourses are failing to resist the pressure ahead of that e.u. me saying greece will be in the spotlight as all the members of the eurozone trying to force it to accept outside controls on his budget this are both of the dogs not

are you far one percent in the negative territory both of my sex on the r.t.s. finish today's trading session in the red the artist lost over one percent on the my so a lost around point eight percent or so you've read and now the biggest movers on the my sex why not to spin it sharply lower down beat sentiment from europe russia's top lenders dropped over two percent and the g majors did lesser than the market gazprom finished home four percent lower retailer magnate dropped over one percent despite news is net profit rose over twenty four percent last year a bit better than expected. from b. to be tapped to wraps up the day straight the trainees months. again abstain from lower in reserve requirements that was the expectation and. markets were but don't think this morning plus. there's no understanding of how the greek talks or end

and obviously that's not the end of a story there's portugal has been making headlines. as the yields climbed actually climbed for for almost across the board in europe which is again the negative and we're going to have a look at those currency rates now low all prices are weighing on the ruble is losing against both the dollar and the year right on the year is retreating against the u.s. currency ahead of that european summit. with may fifty five minutes be back here for more markets more business here and also.

culture is that so much given to each musician on the market for crude blockade and the turning off of the taps as the united states media you with janet sanction iran iran is also a threat people imposed. moves . it's just simply to.

do with r.t. live from moscow our coffee headlines now international observers in syria are killing time in the hotel awaiting further instruction a from the arab league. i think in ten years around the capital meanwhile russia offers to host talks between the syrian government and the opposition but the mask is already taking up the offer. iran warns it could stop supplying oil to certain the e.u. states in response to sanctions against its nuclear program which is currently undergoing a un inspection and that's despite the iranian parliament suspending its debate on

a complete ban of crude exports to the whole european union. and the e.u. leaders week in brussels for their first summit this year but the agenda is far from new with greek debt still the center of discussion the meetings taking place against the symbolic backdrop of and your stare at the protests and a general strike in belgium. but before bill dog gets here in half an hour's time tempers flaring and accusations flying what's next for iran with western warships loitering on the border nuclear inspectors touring its facilities its own crosstalk right now stay with us.

if you can. start. following the welcome to cross talk i'm peter lavelle crude blockade and the turning off of the taps as the united states and the e.u. again sanction iran iran is also threatening to impose punitive steps against the western powers are we witnessing merely a game of chicken or a potential bomb ticking before the advent of war. can. start. to cross like iran and its oil i'm joined by john robson and he is a columnist and commentator for a sun news network and invited professor at the university of ottawa in london we have to settle me he is an international oil economist and technical expert with

the united nations industrial development organisation and in irvine we go to our bankers our day he is a professor of engineering at the university of california irvine are gentlemen this is cross talk that means you can jump in anytime you want and i very much encourage it but first ok let's go to john robson in in london the you pushing forward july first will cut off all oil exports into the european union from iran and it is calling the strategy to avoid chaos in the middle east isn't it just actually the reverse this will create even more chaos in the middle east this is counterproductive and actually it really actually provoke iran into taking some kind of offensive move but it hasn't to that to date. well the thing is iran is already taking as many offensive moves as it can possibly manage the fear of provoking aggressive regimes is one that's paralyzed the west throughout the twentieth century with terrible consequences i think the time for a showdown with iran is now rather than after it gets

a working nuclear bomb so why worry about the sanctions is there not enough there a substitute for decisive action but they're certainly a step in the right direction nato what do you think about that it's a step in the right direction he no he's absolutely wrong they're not working on weapons the i.a.e.a. hasn't said that and it's definitely increasing the temperature in the gulf persian gulf area and in my opinion the u.s. congress and the united states government basically wants to have a certain temperature but not to boil over they want to have the tightening of the rope around the government of iran but that the same time they don't want to have any particular military action over there and so therefore it's a very balancing act that this point and that's why the joint operation with israel was cancelled for different reasons for that but certainly don't want to bring the temperature down to the level of simmering ok now if iran is good because it keeps the price of oil if i can go back to you i mean but isn't that kind of dangerous i

mean that's sitting over a tipping point i mean if it's now you get to a small mistake and then the consequences are enormous go ahead absolutely so they cannot pat themselves on the back because as you mentioned correctly it's very dangerous because one major minor mistake could turn into a huge problem and also as you know these wars can start easy but they cannot be stopped so it's a very dangerous position and people aren't usually the election purposes john when you want to jump in there. did did you say iran is not working on nuclear weapons that's what he said yes there are no reports i.a.e.a. reports does not say that maybe you know something we don't know but anything that is publicly available not privately or by the intelligence community the things that are publicly available and even the six intelligence organizations in two thousand and seven and eight on two thousand and eleven. o'clock were at the head

of the i.c. basically told the congress that there is no effort on the on the weaponize ation at this time ok gentlemen that's what he said you can find a court on. monday so let me if in london if i can go to you what about this this oil regime that it could come into place here what with the european union wants to do and what iran is threatening to do today is monday and its discussion of cutting off oil to. the european union or the iranians doing the right thing or is it a bluff. i don't think it is a love i think it is a defensive measure they could force the only one to look for it somewhere else at a higher price because the global oil market is sort of tight so trying to fly five hundred to six hundred thousand veterans which are imported by the european union will not be as easy job furthermore the gulf producers including saudi

arabia are not in a positive to all of said the loss of that oil because they don't have any spare capacity to be able to provide for the european union so we are in a very. difficult situation with the oil market very very tight ok john if i can go back to you i mean really what this is all about we had tim geithner going around the world last month getting countries to cut oil imports from iran and most countries are not going to go along with it but what is really the plan is really about nuking iran is nuclear program or is it really about regime change for over thirty years now well after four sets of sanctions this is the silver bullet right this is the one that's finally to take the regime down is that what the plan is. well i think that that probably is the plan for the simple reason that the iranian regime is extremely of not just an aggressive and you know

the idea well they're not working on nuclear weapons they're just building centrifuges in a fortified compounds away under mountains and enriching uranium and doing all the things you would be doing if you were building nuclear weapons but we can trust and i would have an easier job because he said if he wants to wipe israel off the map mr first round of his war against the west you just can't afford to ignore that kind of thing but it's just one example of iran's thoroughly of not just behavior in the middle east and people say well if you attack iran the middle east will erupt and chaos will be war going on ok moffitt the countries around israel are doing everything they can and dare to do to destroy israel already it's not like making the mad is a danger you know this is like oh don't make hitler mad you know he might get aggressive the question is what range of threats to they pose and how can we deal with that you know they told the americans don't bring your aircraft carrier back to the strait of hormuz and the americans brought into said ok you feel like a naval battle you want to piece of us do you do it of course the iranians back down because they would have had i gone there that life you know one of the idea is i think we were down the regime before it does something terrible ok i think we got to nato if i can go to you i mean i right before the program i took

a look at look at a look at looked at a map of military bases the united states surrounding iran i mean my goodness there's a if you can call the regime of knocks you see if you want but it's certainly being threatened by the west in a very real way go ahead meet our. iran is israel is one of the most powerful nations in the world per capita per capita if you divide the number of nuclear weapons by the population is number one in the world it's even higher than russia and united states so nobody dares to attack israel this is just doesn't make sense but it's rambling this kind of nonsense is what the media and united states and some other places is going on is it changing the public's view of this is there is no record of this iranian government be tough on its own people and not treat them democratically but when it comes to externals countries they have not attack anybody two hundred years when the afghani regime the taliban's cut about twenty

ronnie and diplomats in missouri sheriff they couldn't even cross the border to attack them they are such a weak in terms of attacking other countries they are not interested in doing that they may have proxy wars with united said israel and that's not very good but in general the idea of the centrifuges that are in a safe guarded site in the tunnels which you cannot say that about israel's the facility that is breaking bob this is absolutely ridiculous going back to the oil as your guest from london said the capacity of saudis apparently from what i have read is about three to four million barrels so basically it will tighten the market so much and it will impact so the iranian government deciding to actually preventing europeans and bluff them and to actually try to remove all of purchases to them as soon as possible actually exasperate the economy of europe and it would definitely be a very defensive measure so all of this is increasing the temperature as i said earlier what they don't want in washington is the temperature going boiling over

they wanted to be simmering all of it to november two thousand and twelve because the obama administration needs to show to the republicans and the voters that is tough on iran but does not want to have a war at this time before november. two thousand and twelve so that's a very balancing act that is going on and it's all related and one mistake will change all of that money to some i mean london what if it let's say it happens ok the european union cuts all imports of oil into iran well how will that are in fact the economy of iran will it break the back of the economy or is this just another round of sanctions that the iranians will just have to absorb the iranian economy is very dependent on oil exports the we've the whole world of. european union imports from iran will not very much affect the iranian economy

however if there is and tempt to stop iran exporting oil and that could only happen at the united nations security council and i don't think that is a possibility it will happen simply because russia or china that so we are talking hypothetically about defensive measures of shutting the state of automobiles iran has the can really to mine this street over what it was and cause a blockage to various tankers however they will know what to do with that except on one condition if they were prohibited from selling their oil in that case they would take the attitude that if we cannot sell our oil we will stop all oil exports from the gulf furthermore in an act of defiance iran is carried by

a barrel of simple packaging the us the nor are installations in saudi arabia which are out of the biggest in stations and they were and from which the ninety para cent of saudi oil exports are loaded. what do you think about that john mayer before we go to the break here i mean is is this what you think this is plausible that the sanctions will actually work or is nato are really right this is just a political move in washington to please the israelis and please the republican electorate well i'm puzzled by it because the thing is if iran isn't selling its oil to the european union it will be selling it to somebody else that person will then need to import less oil from elsewhere and that will be freed up for the europeans i mean oil is pretty much oil and so if the same amount is going into the world market the same coming out i don't see that a whole lot of spin achieved now if you get into a scenario where they start trying to stop arabian oil exports altogether and then the iranians might want to attack saudi oil fields this gives the west a big incentive for a preemptive attack if the temperature rise on that show and i know john i'm going

to go to a short break i'll go right back to you after the short break after schoenberg will continue our discussion on the future of red state with our team. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture.

teach. students. to. welcome back to cross talk you talk about the two minds you were talking about the oil embargo to be imposed on iran. to teach. students. how can i to go back to john in ottawa i

mean we hear in mainstream media and politicians like to use the term carrot and stick as if iran is a donkey or something like that but this carrot and stick approach has never worked it hasn't worked for thirty years why do you think it's going to work now. oh it won't work this is just the way that western diplomats talk to justify not taking effective action. so john when we had it wouldn't be what would be effective actually going to war is that effective i think that's going to have to happen look mom would want to bring the hidden even out of a well by doing something spectacular and destructive to enemies of islam and this is what motivates him this is a crisis not of the old soviet leadership who for all their misdeeds were at least atheist so they believe that a nuclear war and death was an end in failure and many energy i think is dying in a nuclear war for allah will get him to paradise what incentive do you have to bring to bear on him what carrot can you offer him to compare with that so you have

to be prepared to stop his military efforts if i can say to him i think there's something really dangerous ok now go ahead please do. then he has never said that he wants to die in a nuclear attack this is absolutely not true this is the kind of thing we heard from the ill informed irresponsible republican nominees like michele bachmann he said they was going to use nuclear tipped missiles to hit israel he has never said that even if he says that what the sixteen words that they quote it is he's not in charge he's not the one who makes the decisions and isn't it interesting that when he says those things they believe him when he says we don't have nuclear bombs we don't believe it so we just selectively cherry pick what we want. to see him know look he says listen he says i'm going to write there's going to be doesn't and you can involve why don't you read every and he lay me down he wants to wipe out israel which is what for a country that has had a tad anybody not the only doctor the most powerful nation this kind of rhetoric this kind of rhetoric.