it's party to the case and therefore it's not independent and impartial to the case against funding a fundamental difference in the rules but today at the swedish prosecutor's legal team will be arguing that that doesn't matter and in fact the thirty doesn't have to be independent and impartial if we are hearing from the inside that the arguments of the swedish prosecutor's team is coming under scrutiny an associate teams argument did the judges a much more questioning of it seemingly less impressed by it that this is the final avenue for him here in england that this is the highest court in the land that we're in now he could then take his case the european court of human rights but that's by no means guaranteed however there's a backlog. about to eight years he could be hanging around in this a bizarre limbo if he doesn't win here who's just told his greatest fear is that speed would be an extra scientists from here to sweden with his feet literally

wouldn't touch the ground in the suite would then send him straight to america which of course has a vested interest in this he's always said that these allegations are not to be worked with mickey where he he released a huge number of very embarrassing files for the u.s. government and other governments around the world and international businesses will have to wait and see what he does and how how he's going to pass the time and indeed he does i just like to continue with this fight. he's laura smith reporting there from london it's now i just turning twenty minutes past the hour heard moscow the blunders of u.s. politicians have inspired jokes and parodies for decades now with the u.s. presidential election campaign heating up there's a whole new supply of ammunition but it's all he's more in a portnoy reports some believe the comments of displays of ignorance and disregard for world affairs are no laughing matter. every four years america's top job is up for grabs. with each new election comes

a new batch of candidates with compromising foreign policy credentials when i ask me who is the president of you becky becky becky becky stands banned i'm going to say you know i don't know do you know i'm afraid that it's a very hard struggle particularly given the situation on the iraq pakistan border you can actually see why russia from land here in alaska africa was a country on the brink on the brink of complete meltdown and chaos geographically illiterate us candidates have supplied comedians with endless material but all jokes aside some presidential hopefuls vying to lead the world's most powerful armed forces know very little about america's military interventions so you agree with president obama libya or. libya. forming a cohesive sentence on geopolitics can be

a struggle i do not agree with the way he is for reasons. i. know that's that's a different one differentiating between friends and enemies is also a challenge obviously got to stand with our north korean allies in the case of republican candidate mitt romney mixing up presidents and prime ministers and economics i think that president bush represents a real threat to the. stability and peace of the world the overarching ignorance on international affairs has caused american political commentator bill maher to conclude i think anybody could be president in this country ok sort of like at this point now where i think if you're going to be when you register to be a candidate you also have to go take a test about foreign affairs and if you fail the test we might get you one chance to take it again and then i'm say sorry go run you know for city

council in your little town in alaska if a country with the world's highest national g.d.p. is being represented by politicians with a deficit on international affairs the biggest consequence is likely to be america's credibility around the world and even who we target and let me finish with this i just get lost in a blizzard of words there this is where it gets really dangerous for united states of america it's like wait a minute how could they possibly be right about terrorism how could they be right about north korea are going to be right about iran so-called nuclear program when their candidate doesn't even know that there's a north and south korea i think the u.s. is why and so then the world has this very paranoid view of the united states because of the candidates not understanding basic facts or understanding basic principles of international law which unequivocal prohibit torture and if i were present. i would be willing to use waterboarding i think it was very. me and i

agree the consistent streak of foreign policy blunders made by u.s. presidential hopefuls is quite humorous but it can also be considered a national tragedy if most candidates campaigning to be leader of the so-called free world simply don't know enough about the world outside of america's borders. before we get to the business with. some other global news in brief we'll start with pakistan it's where the supreme court has decided to charge the country's prime minister with contempt for its failure to reopen an old corruption case against the president if convicted. could face six months in jail and losers office the court has demanded a reopening of the case dating back to the late ninety's over the government has refused and insists the president enjoys immunity from prosecution while the us. the united states has made the surprise announcement that it will hold combat

operations in afghanistan earlier than expected u.s. the defense secretary leon panetta said the country wants to switch to a role of supporting and training local forces before the end of next year and officials claim the decision ruin the whole transition plan and force preparations to be rushed through one thousand seven hundred american troops and tens of thousands of civilians have died since the two thousand and one invention. a ferry carrying three hundred fifty people has sunk to a new guinea's north coast rescuers plucked from the sea at least two hundred nineteen survivors but others are still missing the ship's operator said it lost contact with the vessel on thursday after a send a distress call most of the passengers and trainee teachers. i let's get to the business news now your hourly update with dmitri.

banks for a radical improvement in the business climate will be the urgent task of the next administration if lead him a person wins the presidency in much the current prime minister says the country needs to jump from one hundred twenty five to twenty of place and terms of its attractiveness for business speaking at the troika dialog economic forum in moscow he explains what this would mean in practice. in reality this would mean it would take a quarter of the amount of time to commit to a tricity network it would seek an accountant a third of the time to fill in the tax declaration which a truck would find it seven times easier to get through customs and it will take a fifth of the time to get permission for construction or strategies based on presumption of fair business practice this means there will be less control and excessive reporting requirements the officials should not decide what investors need it should be business as defining what they require now there's a form x.

finance minister who has also been urging speedy reforms he says without them growth will be kept even with a high oil price. russia is not ready for a bounce in economic growth for the next three to five years we're lacking some legal states management and market conditions if the new government decides to improve these it still means a transition period of three to five years then we could be ready for a bounce and a return to growth rate of six to seven percent. to the biggest market moving story of the day the russian government is ready to buy back shares in the country's second largest bank d.t.b. from minority shareholders who purchased the stock during an i.p.o. in two thousand and seven the government adds it will do its best to ensure investors do not make a loss the list price for the shares was thirteen point six copecks are currently trading around seven the head of d.t.b. estimates the cost of the buyback. there are around one hundred fifteen thousand

minority shareholders in bt bank in order to pull back shares of around one hundred to one hundred ten pounds and minority shareholders will need some fifteen to eighteen billion rubles. secular the markets and there's a change for the better in europe they used to be down there the up they're turning positive after the u.s. labor department reported weekly unemployment applications fell by twelve thousand so we're expecting a slight positive opening of the u.s. markets the greek government is still trying to come to a deal with their creditors who are putting pressure on the e.c.b. to join the bonds for the negotiating. here in russia also a change of nearly r t s m i six now point two percent secular was moving the my sex now as we mentioned financials in the lead the tb is up two and a half percent of the prime minister putin set a buy back from minority shareholders here's possible it still as you can see there

almost half the listing price of thirteen point six throwbacks energy majors are also looking positive of gas from a point four percent for its burbank is down by just. to currencies now and the european to news its recovery versus the dollar now. from from what we've seen last hour it's up at least the european union official said the block has asked the year's own to help provide an extra fifteen billion euro for there to read in greece. and other news the world's largest publicly traded commodity supply glencore is in merger talks with another mining giant extra both are listed in london glencore already holds thirty four percent of xstrata which is very diversified billion dollars if the tie up goes smoothly the combined company will have a capitalization of about eighty billion dollars and would be the first largest mining company in the world. coming up next i'll see the headlines with rory.

you're. wealthy british science. that's not on. the.

market why not. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike stronger for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines. kaiser reports. you're watching live from the russian capital here you have. promises to own up deals and not stop selling arms to syria saying weapons will still reach opposition groups from abroad despite any embargoes and russia is adamant it will block any u.n. resolution which doesn't rule out military intervention. but german leader takes euro woes to the east as she tries to convince china not to write off the e.u. angela merkel is also urging beijing support for an oil embargo against iran

calling on china to. and to persuade iran to abandon any atomic weapons ambitions. and egypt mourns over seventy football fans killed in post of clashes fans rushed onto the pitch in the seaside city of port side after the home team beat egypt's top clubs setting off clashes under stampede and investigation into the tragedy is under way amid claims that police just stood by and watched. t.v. we talked to the senior editor of new statesman magazine mehdi hasan and he tells us here about see that finding a solution to the crisis in syria won't be easy and it won't be seen as legitimate without a u.n. resolution that's right now. today i'm talking to mehdi has the he's 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 and 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 that monday i did a 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 and i mean the arab league has really been all over the place on syria on the one hand it's condemned syria it was praised for the first time condemning the father arab nation and putting a resolution in a few months ago since the 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 then one of the got on it 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 our target of 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 find if they squeeze the country itself from the people who've done nothing wrong and 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. illegitimate without a u.n. resolution and more and more innocent people will die than 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 and 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 appears to be three some distinct blocks that the free syrian army that's the kind of external opposition that's being put in the streets do you think they'll be able to form any kind of lights 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 you noted opposition for the purposes of getting rid of gadhafi and they controlled territory 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 iraq because hundreds of thousands of iraqi refugees fled into syria they know the consequences of a kind of ill will tanya bill 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 defectors every day every week from syrian armed forces and yet all the independent observers not just the assad regime but it's apologists say well out. it's a trickle and they're exaggerating there of strength 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 to the f.s.a. on the ground whether in libya or if you go back to kosovo in 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 some of the number of casualties well again without wanting to overdo the composer did libya and syria one of the things you see when you do support rebel groups sometimes i'm say very 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 in 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 or properly accounted for do we then want to lurch 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 started for and the f.s.a.

of course if you consist of defecting soldiers from an army that's carried out human rights abuses that 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 any link between the libyan islamists and stays on the ground in syria well there's been reports of as you know where as with all these conflicts you know they're gray and they're murky that libya does live as groups fighting in libya finished fighting in libya have transferred over to help some of the syrian opposition groups and do you see any external 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 lost until they were protected rights all will. 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 the israelis have been clear for many years that if you can pull syria out of orbit you will weaken iran which they consider to be the number one enemy 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 create 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 if you if you take the arab spring the saudis have thrown 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 in to better are still in bed suppressing protests in bahrain and in syria they're supporting the opposition if that's not one side of this i don't know what is and that shows you that saudi arabia's own interests are nothing to do with human rights with democracy of course and how could so very 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 straits of hormuz which of course we know is the main export gulf oil wow. do you think the political consequences of that can 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 that the islamic revolution is failing to see the green movement popular who are seeing lots of people protesting at 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 toward an election near a 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 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 get 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 to libya didn't put boots on the ground the idea that you would then kick off a conflict with iran but how does 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 will be drawn in whether they like it or not because they can't abandon israel because of what is often strategic purposes they certainly can about israel and election we're in very shaky economic times globally at the main. 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 analysts say even a record high above 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 have kind of turned a blind eye to this and only recently with the radio threatening to block the strait of hormuz we think the third of the we'll see board oil passes through people start to go away to the 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 reasons that he has very much thank you. i am. shot four times i'm told all. three of the boards are still in the lobby. and

people should be allowed to. find these people are now. basically. i'm sorry you know the public comes out here and this makes it go bang and if what you hear is going to. that's all the really really crazy and. chilling what i want to philadelphia these are the streets. hopefully we will never have to use the weapons for self defense but we should be perp. they are a full class including the teacher as it was. seventeen students as city am one of seven or still a lot of. just

say. this. is. a safe. the. critique three. three. three. three. three.

three vote video for your media project free media. headlines on. syria saying weapons will still reach. any un resolution which ruled out military intervention. the german leader takes. to the east and she tries to convince china not to write off. support for an oil embargo against iran china to use its influence to persuade tehran to abandon any. seventy

foot killed in clashes were rushed onto the pitch in the seaside city of port after the home team egypt's top club. investigation into the tragedy is underway amid claims of police just standing by. so many more on that story with the next with the sports. your company this is sports a plenty ahead over the next ten minutes including these stories in great. tragedy on the field more than seventy killed following a football match invasion in egypt. end of an era trainer. known for his work in the corner of muhammad ali and other boxing icons passes away

aged ninety. rink dreams are teammates one of russia's big medal hopes for the soft she will surely make it. three days of national mourning have been announced in egypt after scores of people lost their lives to the top five football match on wednesday violence flaring up in the game between musri and i luckily when supporters some partly armed with knives ran onto the pitch the visiting team were chased into the changing room with players kicked and punched as they fled officials say the death toll of seventy plus could rise even further with more than two hundred injured the violence at football matches in egypt has been on the increase ever since political unrest swept the country you're buying egypt's deputy health minister has described it as the biggest disaster in the country's footballing history. the boxing world is mourning the loss of one of its all time nation's renowned trainer. die.