the death toll could rise further. over two hundred people have been rescued off the coast of papua new guinea after a passenger ferry sank the boat was carrying around three hundred fifty people as a problem between the cities of cambridge and why the ship's operator said it's lost contact with the vessel on thursday after it sent a distress call the search continues for over one hundred people still missing. american the fan secretary leon panetta says the u.s. will seek to and its combat operations in afghanistan next year speaking at a nato summit he said the country wants to switch to a role of supporting and training afghan forces the decade long presence of u.s. troops there has cost the us around six billion dollars a year seven hundred u.s. troops and tens of thousands of civilians have died since the two thousand and one invasion. the deep freeze and have the snow have led to at least eighty deaths across eastern europe forty three people have died in ukraine alone where

temperatures have plummeted to minus thirty degrees celsius in bosnia a rescue helicopter airlifted emergency food and evacuated dozens from snow blocked villages weather forecasters say the subzero temperatures are expected to last until friday. a stark message from the u.n. to israel stop building settlements on occupied palestinian territory and restart peace talks palestinians claim they're being terrorized by israeli settlers outnumbered and outgunned some are now turning to tech savvy to defend themselves policy or has more. this footage is being filmed with nasa on a watch as camera he's the palestinian who's been pushed to the ground fine israeli soldier just moments earlier his friend took his camera and started filming. the price when all three were ordered out for literally i know that it was me and. although no no. no no no. no no no no no no no

scenes like this happen almost weekly here in the hebron hills and across the palestinian territories for years they went unrecorded until an israeli human rights organization distributed cameras to nasser and dozens of other palestinians to capture glimpses of every day reality in an occupied zone the number one reason for settler attacks against palestinians and their property is the lack of law enforcement by israeli authorities this sends a clear message to violence settlers they will act with impunity that will not be made to pray to pay a price for their actions but more and more they are being called to book after footage like this has been made public the extremists often strike in the dead of night sitting fire to mosques and painting wars with the words placed the term as a threat to israeli security forces of the heavy price will have to pay if they try to break down settlements a lot of the goal is to take control of all the land and expel palestinians the

settlers let loose wild animals on the agricultural land so they destroy the crops we've seen instances where saddam was run over palestinians with their cars and shoot at unarmed palestinians it's on the increase. guy batavia is an israeli activist who gave up his day job so he could volunteer full time to teach palestinians about the camera project he says settlers think twice when they see a lens pointed in their direction although it didn't stop him recently from breaking his arm and beating him all over his body at a protest in support of a palestinian farmer whose land have been stolen by a settlement but we were about fifteen activists in. and there's. about the camera actually. it's one of the people that they were with. on the ground there with

their cameras. all the cameras not only did israeli police do nothing while bones were broken and one second attempted to knife or protester but it's really activists say police beat several of them up what's more for the first time israeli woman activists say there were sixty harassed and assaulted by both male and female israeli extremists but that hasn't dampened the enthusiasm of nasa and others to form what's going on and hold the israeli security forces and settlers accountable when the settlers see the cameras of course they don't do what they would usually do the cameras haven't stopped have just changed the way the settlers attackers now they do it mostly when it's impossible to throw all their checkers from the side before they attack to see if we have cameras with us. the settlers are accused of carrying out violent attacks against random palestinian civilians damaging their property more recently however they're charged with targeting israeli soldiers and police and facing the homes of left wing israeli activists israeli prime minister

benjamin netanyahu has vowed to crack down on jewish extremism in the west bank but with his government supporting settlement expansion that promise means precious little to those on the receiving end of the violence policy our team television. brings us up to date with what's happening in business with katie. thanks marina gold has evolved to the highest level in eight weeks stronger manufacturing in countries like china and india is weakening the dollar and boosting demand for alternative investments but in is now trading at over one thousand seven hundred fifty dollars an ounce and investors expect a further growth on economic uncertainty. from one of the largest gold mine is in russia believes it will reach around two thousand dollars this year there is so

much uncertainty but financial uncertainty in europe there's a need to stimulate the american economy which is being done in effect by printing money political instability in syria and iran the only way out of these issues is for money that we know dollar euro to be devalued against real assets and people have learnt about this as a as a trick form problem by their government so they want to protect themselves and go is indeed wealthy people are physically buying small doesn't go as wealth insurance to stop them suffering at the hands of massive devaluation of money probably some somewhere around somewhere around two thousand average for the two thousand and twelve. global stock markets have had the best start to the year for almost two decades they've risen an average of five point eight percent in january helped by signs of excel or easing growth in the u.s. and improvements in the european debt problems corporate results have also mostly

been above expectations banks and miners have been the best performing sectors which shows up more than nine percent. does take a look at the markets with you get started with the exchange rates the euro is trading just a not tie against the dollar stocks are extending their global rally ahead of us still day coming tomorrow for refuge now says the u.s. dollar is low against the russian ruble off to seeing some gains in the previous session but the euro has managed to edge higher in the last hour let's move on to oil crude prices are performing much better than the earlier in the session extending the gains it made in the last hour walk despite news that gasoline fell to a ten year low although they will still trading near the lowest level in six weeks and brant crude in london was up the biggest premium to new york prices in twelve in which right now you can see the light. just over a quarter of

a cent imposed of territory on the brant is off a percent. on the european markets are now open for business and after a very solid performance yesterday both the footsie on the dies are positive charity with the dax half a percent. on the russian market so i got off to a good dos in the black spots all now not doing quite so great so as you can see b.l.t.'s is just point one percent and then my sex has edged. let's see what's going on in the my sex and the financial stocks are among the main gate is. is point four percent up it's last year's it never profit reached ten unhealthy billion dollars these. she is gaining points some some just by life and energy mages are also obvious gas pump off a percent i am a rubenstein from i have seen much of all police the general marines who continue to be but that spot still movements on the likely head of the key data in the

cessna. we're going to get a very important i say the most important piece of marker data these days this is u.s. labor market report. it's it's a general labor every port that's going to come out before u.s. market opens expectations that american economy created hundred fifty thousand new jobs fall into a gain of two hundred thousand back in december a lot of investors will be waiting for that number and we have seen on the sidelines we might see a pause in there ali if we look at the valuations they're still not very demanding and if you look at the russian market for example it is trading at less than six times earnings and just back in june a trade at about a half nine times earnings china has been a very significant drop in the valuations in the market and in in the indexes and also in the valuations of their of the russian companies. the global banking sector is getting increasingly anxious about its future according to

a new survey by consultancy you say it shows concerns about the bank ups's buying king nationalizations have reached the highest level in thirteen years the job you say has pulled bankers from almost sixty come tryst the debt crisis in the eurozone is considered the biggest risk the survey has also shown that russian banks are less prepared to face the economic dangers than the foreign rivals but also from a fun now fifty five minutes. headlines.

a soulless substance. cannot touch like a well trained army. religion is in ruins. for thailand where time stands still. all becomes a sea of nothingness. the mysterious suns of russia on our t.v. . news today violence is once again flared up. and these are the images the world has been

seeing from the streets of canada. china corporations are old today. welcome back you're watching our top stories rush refuses to back the latest u.n. draft resolution on syria unless it's a managed to clearly rule out military intervention and an arms embargo on damascus moscow's against regime change and once the blame for the bloodshed in syria placed equally on the government and the armed opposition. german chancellor angela merkel is in china calling on the country to help the financially crippled e.u. by investing in the euro and pushing for refusing to get on board the western policy on iraq. plus as the international community calls on israel to stop

building homes on occupied land the palestinians who live there are trying to stop what they call terrorism at the hands of israeli settlers israel's promise to climb down on the perpetrators but the continued support for settlement construction is sending a mixed signal. thus we have lines here in our next we talk to the senior editor of new statesman magazine maggie hassan who tells r.t. that finding a solution to the crisis in syria won't be easy and won't be legitimate without a un resolution. today i'm talking to mehdi has his the senior political editor for the new statesman magazine where the me talking about the violence that's going on in syria at the moment and also the developing situation in iran that he has on thank you very much for talking to me today now we've seen observers being sent into syria who seem to have done nothing to stop the violence in fact the death toll has risen

from twenty to thirty people that day how good do you think the observers are implementing them on days i think they're very good given to one of the leaders of the mission where originally went in was a sudanese general who's been accused of carrying out war crimes and ethnic cleansing a doll for which slightly hobbled both the legitimacy of the mission and the trust of a lot of syrian opposition groups and in the arab league mission since then the saudi arabians have complained about the mission they've pulled out their observer they're pulling out their a bus about the arab league has really been all over the place on syria on the one hand it's condemned syria it was praise for the first time condemning a fellow arab nation and putting the resolution in a few months ago and since then it's mission has been criticized for among other things the personalities deployed and its inability to stop the violence 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 one of the go down and what about sanctions the u.k. recently proposed tougher sanctions on syria things like travel bans asset freezes

what effect if any do you think that have it depends how targeted the sanctions are more on the fence over sanctions given the experience we have with iraq for over a decade of sanctions which cause more suffering to the people than to the saddam regime i support sanctions targeted against regime members targeted against people who are indicted for human rights violations or war crimes fine if they squeeze the country from the people who've done but it will not i think that's a mistake i think we have to think much more creatively about syria i'm not one of those who support military action in syria isn't libya it won't be easy. would be legitimate without a u.n. resolution and more and more innocent people will die than will have already died but that doesn't mean you just turn a blind eye to the violence that's going on more than five thousand people have died according to the un's own figures and our side is about it clearly is not backing down you look at some of his interviews you know he's not as bonkers as colonel gadhafi but he says some pretty crazy things about how it's nothing to do with me not my orders these are all armed rebels everyone who's dying and let's talk about the opposition for a little bit there appear to be three some distinct blocks that the free syrian

army has a kind of external opposition that's been in the streets do you think they'll be able to form any kind of well that's one of the objections a lot of people are having against any kind of external military action which is where is the legitimacy in libya you had a opposition movement which despite being consisting of different groups secular religious etc indigenous those outside the country they did for a united opposition for the purposes of getting rid of gadhafi and they controlled territory bengazi it's what prompted the intervention to begin with in syria they don't control any territory they don't control any cities or towns and there is this division between the external opposition figures like the leader of the syrian national council is based in paris and those who are on the on the streets who have said again and again to western reporters to human rights groups that we don't want military intervention we are opposed to both syrian president were opposed to the assad regime and were opposed to western intervention we saw what happened in iraq and the syrians what's interesting about the syrians is that they saw up close and

personal the effects of western intervention in iraq because hundreds of thousands of iraqi refugees fled into syria they know the consequences of chemical ill timed ill thoughtout heavy handed western intervention which just exacerbates the violence and the free syrian army as far as you can see what are they fighting for does it look like genuine democracy there's a huge debate about the f.s.a. and how much first of all how many defections there are going on because they claim to be getting dozens and dozens of the fact every day every week from syrian armed forces and yet others independent observers not just the assad regime but it's apologists say well. actually it's a trickle and they're exaggerated there are strengths in order to again justify a western intervention if you look at the history of western interventions so-called humanitarian interventions you always see there's an equivalent of the f.s.a. on the ground whether in libya or if you go back to kosovo the k.l.a. which also said you know give us the guns give us the support and we'll do the fighting and in afghanistan you have the northern alliance and actually it turns out that these groups tend not to have as much legitimacy as they claim and be not to have as much military strength as they claim and the free syrian army is accused

of killing people itself isn't it do we have any idea of sort of the number of casualties well again without wanting to overdo the composer delivery and syria one of the things you see when you do support rebel groups sometimes unsavory groups you know my enemy's enemy is my friend you support people who are perhaps not the greatest defenders or advocates of human rights themselves in afghanistan we supported all sorts of unsavory warlords and still do in libya the opposition groups and the national transition council there libya was accused by human rights watch during the conflict of carrying out all sorts of killings and abuses of prisoners which still haven't been resolved to properly accountable do we then want to look into a syrian conflict where again we are ignorant of what's going on on the ground we're not experts on who these people are what these groups are for and the f.s.a. of course if you consist of defecting soldiers from an army that's carried out human rights abuses then a lot of those defectors will be part of those human rights abuses that's just a horrible reality of the world we live in and in terms of the actual people do you see a link between the libyan islamists and stays on the ground in syria well there's

been reports about as you know as with all these conflicts you know very gray and there murky that libyan is lewis groups fighting in libya finished fighting in libya have transferred over to help some of the syrian opposition groups and do you see an extra ball move towards intervention since the new year my position is changing and i can imagine a scenario where we are where nato is asked or the british government american governors are asked to enforce a no fly zone to enforce some kind of safety corridor or look which which would be would be ostensible they were protecting human rights all the. good but would push us into all sorts of areas of the middle east we don't want to be involved in because syria for example is a much bigger player in the israel arab conflict it's a much bigger country and tougher to overcome and beat militarily if it took us that long to beat libya how long did it take to syria how far do you think syria is already essentially a battlefield between iran and the west israelis have been clear for many years that if you can pull syria out of iraq all but you will weaken iran which they

consider to be the number one enemy in the number one menace in the neighborhood the number one threat to israel's strategic interests so if you can get syria away from iran either through a diplomatic deal which they tried for many years all through regime change which seems to be the direction of travel mel that would definitely weaken iran and all roads in the middle east right now or do seem to lead back to tehran and saudi arabia's relationship with iran is increasingly hostile and it is iran of supporting this protesting shiite minority how do you think that could play out saudi arabia's own position is brazenly one sided brazenly self-serving and hypocritical here you have saudi arabia having pulled its ambassador out of damascus having complained about the arab league on the ground of its human rights observations what first of all the saudi arabians have their own human rights abuses to deal with at home their own oppressive regime but even if you take the arab spring the saudis are throwing their weight behind the syrian opposition to us and yet have done their utmost best to stop the arab spring to stop the revolts and all of the other countries in egypt in bahrain where saudi troops went into

bettering are still in barry suppressing protests in bahrain and yet in syria they're supporting the opposition if that's not one sided this i don't know what is and that shows you the saudi arabia's own interest of nothing to do with human rights with democracy of course and how could so to really be interested in such issues it's about trying to deal with iran that we know from wiki leaks that the saudi king told the american government cut the head of the snake a deal with the snake that is iran in his view and iran has been threatening recently to block the strait of hormuz which of course we know is the main export gulf oil. what do you think the political consequences of that could be deeply and genuinely worried about what will happen if the iranian chop the strait of hormuz as they promised i think you'll have a situation where we start sleepwalking into war on both sides where there are extremists on both sides who want a conflict who would love a conflict because it would serve their purposes in the west there are people who want to take out iran both for america's national interest so-called and of course for the israelis and in iran there are hardliners who see the islamic revolution

failed within the green movement popular who are seeing lots of people protesting of the regime and see a foreign war seeing who see the idea of being under attack as a way of uniting the country so they're hardliners on both sides and i think the people in the middle have to be careful that we don't allow the hardliners to kind of allow us to sleepwalk into war where they shut the straits of hormuz and the americans who i suspect don't want to go to war not an election year of force to come in in order to secure the oil and to protect the israelis if israel were to attack iran as well which is the sixty four thousand dollar question you mentioned that this year is of course an election year in the u.s. do you think that the u.s. is likely to wait until the election is over when in doing so it could anger israel by not acting sooner well that's the interesting question i think of their own free will i don't think they do want to go to war think obama is running on a campaign of trying to energize his base saying we're the guys who ended iraq we're the guys we're going to bring troops home from afghanistan with the guys who took a backseat in libya didn't put boots on the ground the idea that you would then kick off a conflict with iran and as one american general put it you know if you loved iraq

if you liked a rock in afghanistan you love iraq i mean it would be a major conflict and i think if you listen to for example defense secretary panetta saying recently that actually an attack on iran would have unintended consequences would be a backlash against american troops in the region clearly he's not keen on it and yet if the israelis were to strike iran and iran were to strike back then the americans would be drawn in whether they like it or not because they can't abandon israel because of an israel for strategic purposes they certainly can about israel an election we're in very shaky economic times globally at them. but what no one seems to be talking about is what's the economic consequences of a war with iran would be in an age where we are facing a double dip recession possibly another great depression where oil prices are already so high we could see an attack on iran pushing oil prices above one hundred fifty dollars a barrel some of the sights even a record high of about two hundred dollars a barrel which really would tick the entire world economy not just ours but the asians the chinese back into

a major major recession major. and i think people are kind of turned a blind eye to this and only recently with the rate of threatening to block the strait of hormuz we think the third of the world seaboard oil passes three of people starts to go away to what the hell is going to happen to all prices and i think that's a factor the american government's raising as well perhaps less i mean these are any governments reason i think has been very much thank you. i am. were shot four times i'm told. there's a. series of boards are still in the lobby. and people should be allowed to defend themselves or they are gone from the fire these people are now.

basically. i'm sorry you know the bullet comes out here and this makes it go bang and if what you hear is going to. that's all the training really really raise your hand you know somebody's been. killing what i want to kill don't feel these are the streets. a little out of the bully we will never use the weapons for self defense but we should be. they are a full class including the teacher as it was. seventeen students and six am one of seven floors to a lot of. just

so. this. is. an. area a safe. if you. are going to take three years for charges three arrangement three. three. two three. golds three blogs a lot of videos for your media projects a free radio god r.t. dot com.

russia refuses to back the latest u.n. draft resolution on syria unless it's a matter to put clearly rule out military intervention and an arms embargo on damascus moscow's against regime change once the blame for the bloodshed in syria placed equally on the government and the armed opposition. led german chancellor angela merkel was in china calling on the country to help them financially crippled e.u. by investing in the euro and pushing for beijing to get on board the western policy on iran. plus as the international community calls on israel to stop building homes on occupied land the palestinians who live there are trying to stop what they call terrorism at the hands of israeli settlers israel's promise to clamp down on their

perpetrators but the continued support for settlement construction is sending out mixed signals. some have lives here in the back of the top of the hour and meantime sports with paul. hello and welcome to the sports headlines here's what's coming up. in egypt more than seventy fans are killed fold in the pitch invasion during a top flight much. actually all take pride maria sharapova trains in moscow ahead of a rare fed cup outing for russia. i'm gunning for gold our team makes one of russia's big medal hopes for the salt she went to games. but first three days of national mourning have been announced in egypt after more than seventy people lost their lives at a top flight football match violence flared up in the game between. when supporters

apparently armed with knives ran on to the pitch the visiting team were chased into the changing room but were kicked and punched as they fled officials say the death toll could yet rise with more than two hundred injured the violence of football matches in egypt is only increased since political unrest swept across the country more than a year ago egypt's deputy health minister has described it as the biggest disaster in the country's footballing history. well over in england newcastle have moved up to fifth in the premier league to know when a black person on wednesday also have dropped down to seven thought they could only manage a goal is to a relegation threatened bolton the russian signing pavel pogrebnyak was unavailable as they drew one one at home to west brom aston villa for box internal down to take a point at home to keep the all knowledge is six game unbeaten run came to an end with a three hole defeat at sunderland. in spain the first leg of the copa del rey semifinals all complaints barcelona.