very a very. very 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. r.t. new york eighteen minutes past the hour now in the russian capital time to update you on some more international news in brief we start with pakistan where the supreme court has decided to charge the country's prime minister with contempt for his failure to reopen an old corruption case against the president if convicted use of rasika law he could face six months in jail his office in court has long demanded a reopening of the case dating back to the late one nine hundred ninety s. but the government has refused it insists the president enjoys immunity from prosecution while in office. united states has made the surprise announcement that

it will halt combat operations in afghanistan earlier than expected u.s. 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 afghan officials claim the decision is ruin the whole transition plan and fourth preparations to be rushed through seventeen hundred american troops and tens of thousands of civilians have died since the two thousand and one invasion. a ferry carrying three hundred fifty people has sunk off papua new guinea's north coast rescuers plucked from the sea at least two hundred thirty eight survivors but others are still missing the ship's operator said it lost contact with the vessel on thursday after it sent a distress call most of the passengers are students and trainee teachers. the un has demanded israel stops building settlements on occupied palestinian territory and restart peace talks palestinians claim they're being terrorized by israeli settlers numbered and outgunned some are now turning tech savvy to defend

themselves poor the slip. this footage is being filmed with nassau only watches 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 with. your theory was all of it out for literally i know i heard it was we're. also told i was not only oh no no. no no no no no no no no and it seems like those happen almost weekly here and they have been hills and across the palestinian territories for years they went on record 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 . attacks against palestinians on their property is the lack of law enforcement by

israeli authorities this sends a clear message to violence settlers they will act with impunity they will not be made to pray to pay a price for their actions but more and more they've been called to book after footage like this has been made public in extremis often strike in the dead of night sitting fire to mosques and painting wars with the words. the term is a threat to israeli security sources of the heavy price will have to pay if they try to break down settlements and other goods to take control of all the land and expel palestinians the settlers let loose wild animals on the agricultural land will destroy the. sutler's 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 it was 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 stolen by a settlement we were about fifteen. and the settlers in the wouldn't care about the 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 six they're tempted 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 they were sick she harassed and assaulted by both male and female israeli extremists but that hasn't dampened the enthusiasm of nasa and others to film what's going on and hold the israeli security forces and settlers accountable when the certainly see the cameras of course they don't do what they

would usually do the cameras haven't stopped or just change the way the settlers attackers now they do it mostly when it's impossible to show their checker 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 defacing 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 r.t. television. shortly on r.t. we ask what should be done to break the stalemate in syria but first it's the business news with dmitri stay with us for that live here in moscow.

thanks bill a radical improvement in the business climate will be the urgent task of the next administration and wins the presidency in march speaking at the troika dialogue forum in moscow the prime minister says the country needs to jump from one hundred twenty of twenty of place in terms of its investment climate to business that is moving across reports. it sounded like a school records a private student but marks a bad must try harder not amir peretz and highlighted once again that russia has a lot of potential but it's failing to get the results he said most understudies place the country in the top five in terms of its potential it's a good thing for investment but in reality its investment climate places russia in the one hundred and twentieth position something he called a shameful that he said that russia should become the psychologically of the facts and not only when the comes to the question he said others see

a different culture over business consumption and that's what we as an example you mentioned creating an energy revolution which would be followed by a drop in oil prices and other hydrocarbons and one of the other changes to promises is setting up and let someone who would be responsible to protect the rights of all on superman or it's not just foreign investors and he couldn't help but mention the situation that is on travel around the world and how it's affecting the country he's complained that excessive government that's in the u.s. and europe poses a real threat to the global economy particularly for the major exporters in the emerging markets and europe that by saying that the next ten years would see a transformation of the global economy which would see the emergence of new financial centers and goes up to a mistake that russia would be part of those. and the main market moving story of the day the russian government is ready to buy back shares in the country's second biggest bank before minority shareholders who purchased the stock during an i.p.o.

in two thousand and seven the government adds that it will do its best to ensure investors do not make a loss and list price for the shares was fourteen point six copecks the current price is around seven heavy to be estimates the cost of the five. there are around one hundred fifteen thousand minority shareholders in the t.v. bank in order to believe that she is a around a hundred to one hundred ten pounds and minority shareholders will need some fifteen to eighteen billion rubles in this. crisis look at the markets and look at those shares in just a second russian markets third consecutive day of my six moderately up or point two percent now of course financials are the main movers of the day t.v. at one point after these this news about the buy back was up three percent it ended the day up one point two percent prime minister putin announced this buyback

potential buy back from minority shareholders loop oil is also up at the close despite well being slightly as the company shed light it's preparing for listing in hong kong. now to some markets which are still open u.s. stocks are flat to positive that's after u.s. labor department reported weekly unemployment applications go by twelve thousand now that is doing better point six percent. european indices also turned positive to this announcement from the u.s. labor department is the greek government is also still trying to come to a deal with its creditors for putting pressure on the e.c.b. to join the bond swap for being negotiated movers in london glencore xstrata up ten and seven percent respectively and i why is that the world's largest publicly traded commodity supplier glencore is in merger talks with xstrata both are listed in london glencore ready hold thirty four percent of extras which is valued at thirty five billion dollars now if that 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. and that's often how we will be back in fifty five minutes time. old means of protection can be used. when global supremacy is at stake.

between two thousand and five and two thousand and nine the u.s. has spent fifteen billion dollars in the price to pay for the entire program that we are dealing with right now here in two thousand and eleven is another hundred fifty billion dollars that's larger than many country's entire military budgets went on things becomes the best form of france.

the father of a former poison six years ago says pete was mistaken when he accused. sponsible. gets the story from. a german leader. she tries to convince china. angela merkel is also support from. iran. not to syria

weapons position groups from abroad despite. when we talk to the senior editor of the new statesman magazine maybe his son who tells r.t. that finding a solution to the crisis in syria won't be easy and won't be seen as legitimate without a u.n. resolution interview with the some of the main news stories in about fifteen minutes from now. 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 may have some 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 a fellow 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 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 will have it depends how targeter 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 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. be legitimate 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 rebels everyone who's dying and let's talk about the opposition for a little bit there appear to be three some distinct blocs that the free syrian army has a kind of external opposition that's people 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 you know it would 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 ill timed ill thought out 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 defective every day every week from syrian armed forces and yet all the independent observers not just the assad regime but it's apologists i said well out. it's a trickle and there exaggerates 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 sort 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 savory 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 to properly accounted for 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 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 have been 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 well as with all these conflicts you know very gray

and there 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 ostensible they were protecting the rights all well. 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 these raids 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 of 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 keyes's 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 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 better are still

in very suppressing protests in bahrain and in syria they're supporting the opposition if that's not one sided as i don't know what it is and that shows you the saudi arabia's own interest of nothing to do with human rights or democracy of course and how could so to really be interested in such issues it's about trying to deal with iran and 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. do you think the political consequences of that could be. 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 receive the green movement popular who are seeing lots of

people protesting at the region 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 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 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 in 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 others or for strategic purposes they certainly can about israel election we're in very shaky economic times globally at the bait. 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 tip 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 world seaboard oil passes through people started 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 government reasons that he has very much thank you. i am. was shot four times i'm told all. three of the boards are still in the lobby. people should be allowed to be. gone from. these people are now.

basically. i'm sorry you know the bill that comes out here and this makes it go bang and if what you hear is going to. that's all the training really really crazy and. chilling what i want to philadelphia or the streets. a little out of 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 assemblers. seventeen students as am one of seven lost a lot of. moves

the first suit. seemed. to me if. the influence of the trucks on it's technology innovation all the moves developments from around russia we've gone to the future.

brighten a few. songs from fans to pray. for stocks on t.v. dot com. top stories this hour on r.t. as spies saga you turn the father of a former f.s.b. officer poisoned in london six years ago says he was mistaken when you accused of being responsible for his son's death party gets a story firsthand from alexander litvinenko father. the german leader takes her. 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. moscow promises to on the past deals on not stop selling arms to syria saying weapons will still reach opposition groups from abroad despite any embargos. more

of those developments for in less than fifteen minutes from now in the meantime unions here with all the latest from the world of sports. your company this is sports is a plenty ahead over the next ten minutes including the stories in the great. progeny on the field more than seventy pounds are killed following a football match invasion in egypt. end of an era trainer and little done deed known for his work in the corner of muhammad ali and other boxing icons possibly age ninety. i'll drink dreams are teammates one of us is big medal hopes for the soft she win sure the big game. 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 legends really. dying at the age of ninety following a story career overseeing the greats all of the sport done d. perhaps most well known for his association with muhammad ali none was in his corner for all but two of his fights the pair were reunited one last time during at least seventieth birthday last month sugar ray leonard and george foreman the other icons who.