and the people dress like. the median age of the fundamentalists to his number of saying that the green flag. on belgium and this is a joke yet it has its repercussions on other muslims. this kind of group of course they are moved lose but they have no religious background it is a minority perhaps that in search of an identity but that's a big difference and the myth that they're using it's scary and it's freaking people language. unfortunately just kind of group shows about image of islam and most muslims condemn this kind of ideology this is a misinterpretation of her secret books and for. muslims comprise about six percent of the belgian population one of the highest rates in europe and is expected to rise to more than ten percent by two thousand and twenty the muslim who live in belgium they say. they are belgium from the region. you know rigid

and the first declination of. muslim radical groups such as those of the islamic fundamentalists comprise a minority and it's not representative of the muslim community in belgium nevertheless politicians analysts and even the bells of muslims themselves acknowledge that the problem is what these groups symbolize radicalization the process it spreads and the allure of extreme views. tests are so your r.t. brussels the u.s. set out some about its combat operations in afghanistan will add earlier than expected has stirred some confusion among afghan officials who say it could be a disaster for the whole transition plan u.s. defense secretary leon panetta said earlier that the country wants to switch to a role of supporting and training local forces before the end of next year war correspondent and author eric margolis thinks the upcoming u.s. elections could be the main motive for the decision. first of all pressure from other this year's elections

a poll shows sixty percent of american voters are fed up with the war in afghanistan or against that of the price is approaching one truism dollars a time when washington's very hard of cash is cutting budgets and obama wants to be leander johnson now regretting party member he was the peace presidency brown is going to repeat student nine states and this is a very important step you must draw to a smaller number of foreigners places and conduct drone attacks will conduct special sources it's not over yet and understand what's going to have the eighty thousand us paid mercenaries who are in afghanistan remains uncertain turned out to some other stories making headlines across the globe at least thirty seven people have been killed in a shootout between a rival police forces in south sudan dozens more were hospitalized with gunshot wounds fighting erupted at a peace meeting to resolve local disputes about stolen cattle south sudan which

declared its independence last year playing with ethnic tension violent cattle raids and rebel attacks. cambodia's supreme court has said they can marriages chief jailer known as comrade to life in prison for crimes committed while running a notorious detention center appeal judges rejected the man's claim that he was just following orders overseeing the torture and execution of more than twelve thousand victims he was already serving a thirty five year prison sentence for crimes against humanity. a cold snap has already claimed one hundred sixty four lives in eastern europe as nations struggle with record low temperatures heavy snowfall lead to widespread transport chaos and power outages the extreme cold even caused the black sea to freeze off ukraine's coast in that country alone more than one hundred people died after temperatures plummeted to minus thirty celsius most of the victims homeless people. and

coming up a little later join the moscow team on the hunt for new ways to spend your time n. beat the winter cold while staying indoors here's a peek. good morning everybody. and we're exploring the particular subject of hobbies in the working capital from board games to extreme sports the cold weather doesn't put anybody here but why the mosque well that's because i'm here at the big league language school in the center of moscow where this group going to the police game matthew.

stay with us from moscow throughout the day here on r t business news next with dmitri stay with us. welcome to business r.t. the european union is reporting a fall in russian gas supplies for the furred straight day the exceptionally cold weather is putting strains on supply from siberia to cornwall to tell us what's going on we sent our daniel bushell out in the freezing night. what we do know is that e.u. energy commission are going to say guess probably did warn of potential shortages and for the last three days several states from the likes of poland to italy and austria said there have been caught no there has been increasingly cold weather in europe so that means that the morning has risen but those countries have got reserves for such a contingency the european companies have not complained yet officially which means that goes from says it's not making a statement because it's received no complaint previously gazprom says that it may

preference russian consumers which is also suffering russia is also suffering from fairly cold weather at the moment but ukraine and russia have accused of being behind these cuts but it is not really become clear what the real reason for these cuts is at the moment and we do expect this issue to toiled over where near the called receive more and do more returns to normal market watchers expect the darkness of eurozone debt problems to get some lights ratings agency standard and poor's expects the housing union to gradually climb out of its mild recession in the second half of this year and into twenty thirty the firms achieve the european economy is designed we shall see explained. the risks of the more severe recession . that could go into twenty thirteen are significant we estimate about forty percent probability yet i think we have to look at all the factors there has been

some encouraging development inside the u. was own and outside the eurozone what we expect is at the moment from emerging markets particularly. a shout to strengthen again in the second half of the and that should be supportive of a very gradual recovery in the euro zone we also expect that investors confidence will gradually come back as they you up here in central bank continues to provide ample liquidity to the banking sector in the euro zone. but not everyone agrees saxo bank is predicting an economic apocalypse with european equity markets losing a quarter of their value this year we asked the author of the best seller extreme money such as dos which an area seems more likely to him. well i think the best way to describe the s. and p. report is whatever they're smoking i'd like to have some as far as the sex

a bank report goes i think they are believers in the mayan calendar which believes that the world will end in two thousand and twelve but i think the major thing is that when you look at this situation there is no way that europe is going to have a small recession it's going to have a long recession because the government spending will have to be cut and that has been the major stimulus which kept these economies growing the second thing is the banking system in most of these countries is not creating any credit will not be able to create it's technically if you are honest about it they are marginally solve them to the best and we still have not resolved the debt issue and the real question is what will happen to portugal what will happen to spain what will happen to italy and there is absolutely no result on the part of the european leadership and the european economic community because there is really no easy solution. and the russian markets and the friday session with gains marking the fourth bull session in a row have to come from the us where the economy added two hundred forty three

thousand jobs in january and twice what was expected and that will be unemployment rate to eight point three percent in the u.s. . if we look at the market movers on the my sex partners gold surge the most in three years media reports it's a london listed parent will make a buyout offer of course next is also strong you will giant has reported a twenty percent increase in net profits for twenty eleven which is beating for costs that's all for now the headlines are next on r.t. to stay with us.

the close up team has been to the hub bar of screeching where the country's middle wealth starts its way across the ocean. now our chief goes to the area. once named dr lenin looking to a different character to represent itself. for local businesses are striving to build the aviation capital of russia. and for the four by fours are made and should be tested to the limit. welcome to the illyana screech of. russia close up on r t. will the finance technology innovation all the eastham elements from around russia we've got the future covered.

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says. nine thirty pm in moscow these here are t. headline volleys of tear gas fired into crowds of protesters in egypt people rally there for a third day with reports of at least thirty killed protests against the military rulers broke out after wednesday's football violence left seventy four dead. moscow says it can't support a new draft resolution on syria at the u.n. all of the text had been softened to overcome some of russia's objections and still fell short of addressing moscow's main concerns. at all polling stations across

russia to get their own digital observer as web cameras are installed on the prime minister's orders the move was introduced by vladimir putin as a step toward stopping electoral fraud in next month's presidential election. up next capital account with laura lister who's today looking into the global financial delusions stay with us. good afternoon and welcome to capital account i'm lauren lyster here in washington d.c. ben bernanke he is defending the federal reserve's financial refreshment of savers . i recognize that it poses our ship. the purpose of our policy though is to create

a stronger economy. and he also says there are no signs of inflation lucky for us legendary investor jim rogers is here to tell us how wrong bernie is meanwhile angela merkel is in china reportedly trying to convince the country with three point two trillion dollars worth of foreign exchange reserves just for a little in the direction of the euro zone so one could shelling out for the trouble debtors by the largest creditor nation in the world will find out and another major euro zone credit pusher christine legarde we just saw her taking her fundraising at first to the world economic forum coming to collect for the i.m.f. but one might of her and more of these heavy hitting women the abutting had given the back story let's get to the day's capital account.

ok so ben bernanke the federal reserve chairman testified on capitol hill in washington today and you know it was really interesting it really sounds like u.s. congressman who is the house budget committee chairman paul ryan actually knows what's up listen to him talking about quantitative easing and the impact it's had on keeping treasury yields which is the interest the u. u.s. pays on its debt so low when true price discovery in our treasury markets like it has in other countries might give us the wake up call we need to get our act in order to fix our problem are we not blowing ourselves in a false sense of security by this intervention in the in the treasury markets that is just the way when asking and here is burning his response our policies are hardly unusual at this point. almost every major industrial central bank excluding

canada which had less of a recession than we did has a large balance sheet and lower interest rates then my money is doing. that is just fantastic i am so glad that's the rationale now i am not saying paul ryan is off the hook ok congress has been a disaster at dealing with the fiscal side of things but listen to ryan advocating for savers. are you concerned at all about the very very very low interest payments that these savers are getting from these kinds of fixed income assets which are which are hitting our savings and investment side of the economy we are but here's bernanke you defending his policies saying the purpose of it is a stronger economy. if you don't have a strong economy if you have weak economy you're not going to get good returns on all the other assets ok so there's his rationale now this is a conversation we often have on this show and in fact we were just debating it

yesterday and you know the fact is we're not central bankers here we're not economists we don't have ph d.'s we're not billionaire investor we don't have a financial show where we are trying to get to the bottom of all of this economic craziness the very best we can because we care desperately we think a lot is at stake this is really important so i took the topic again to legendary investor jim rogers if you don't know him who most people should he was co-founder of quantum fund with billionaire investor george soros was his partner there he's also a commodities guru author of many books including this one a gift to my children a father's lessons for life and investing i told him you know mr rogers i think savers are getting unfairly punished but i've been talking to people lately who say you know the economy is bad zero interest rates are helping savers are making money but right now no one is so this is just a deal i asked mr rogers if he could clear up just how zero percent interest rates are helping the economy you look up early just to tell us. person i'm delighted to

be here there are not many people i would come straight to the gym for to talk to but you're one of just left the job. i don't know to whom you've been speaking but that is madness you have to have people who save and invest if you're going to build an economy i mean i don't know any economist in history karl marx even realized you have to build up capital in order to build up your economy so if you destroy the class which saves and invest you have no future you may have a present you may even have a next week or next year but long term you're destroying a whole class of people that whole and saving ethic that whole investing ethic and then how do you build an economy and the idea that there's no inflation lar i mean those people must not shop i presume they have their bubble do their shopping for them because everybody knows that prices are going up all you have to do is go and buy anything to these days and you know that and even last week you know the

federal reserve in the united states changed their way of measuring inflation yet again they've changed their inflation measurement several times in the last few decades last week mr bernanke you said we're going to change the way we do it again and guess what a new way shows this and collation but there is information learn ok so the people that say you know government and measure it's don't show a lot of inflation and they're pretty pathetic so i doubt if people jeff zucker is that they're looking at these government figures. and you must have learned by now that if you listen to the government in the government to get your investment advice you're going to go broke. and by the way the government the russian government the u.s. government the germans those. it's all good john these are all governments the orderly you would know because you know about actually making money which is why i know that you know you're the expert on these things i want to look at the federal funds rate if i can bring up that chart for our viewers it shows that during each

for a session since one thousand nine hundred eighty the fed has taken rates lower and lower and lower so now we're adding the fed is keeping them there at zero for a few more years according to their recent remarks what impact does it have that we literally have nowhere left to go with rates it shows that the reserve is totally incompetent and into a bubble they don't have a clue what they're doing. in the past several years has been right if you look at the statements of mr greenspan and mr bernanke you see that everything everything they've said over the fairest fewer years has been totally wrong and we know that their policies have been wrong this does not work it did not work in japan and the japanese of the last two decades the japanese stock market today lauren is eighty percent below where it was twenty two years ago that's not a typo eight percent below where it was twenty two years ago they tried this absurd

policy didn't work there it's not going to work here do you think that's where the u.s. has headed to see a stock market decline that much and a lot decades. well we've already lost one of those we already have one last decade as you know the stock market is not not done very much in the list ten or twelve years the economy certainly hasn't done much in the last ten or twelve years it would but it's judged by real measures of course we're going to have another bed at least what worries me lauren is we're going to have another two or three bad decades where these guys are gone and i think interest rates that the federal reserve stats that doesn't just impact the u.s. because the u.s. is the global reserve currency what impact does that have globally when rates are capped at zero and islam ultimately it's building up huge distortions in the world economy as you know the us is the largest debtor nation in the history of the world and our debts are going up or not higher and higher they're going to these imbalances are going to lead to more currency turmoil more inflation turmoil all

over the world most of the world already knowledge is that there is inflation i care i cannot think of many countries that don't acknowledge that there's inflation except except the united states we say there's no inflation so astonishing to me longer than everybody else in the world has inflation and admits that the united states i don't know how long journalist and the public is going to accept this alan kohler this is leading to a huge distortions in the world imbalances and we're all going to pay for them so then speaking of those in balance and the cost of those and balances i was speaking with someone who believes that the key to bringing manufacturing jobs back to the u.s. is the competitive dollar that if the u.s. devalues the dollar for there that will keep manufacturing jobs going overseas and will bring them home is that then false. well that's a common theory. that works in the short term it's works in the medium term it is

never worked in the long term many countries that try this repeat of the if you just don't price law and yes you have an advantage for a while but in the end you've got to have the backup and everything else. devaluing the car and making your currency go out does give you a competitive good bet agenda shorter but i know of no country in history succeeded by some of the doing that currency and so in one prize and shoddy goods it's never were not in the long term ok so say they tried to do that now in the u.s. because they want they believe it will work in the short term more or whatever and ben bernanke he does devalue the dollar by printing more money what could be the collateral damage and and intended consequences of that one of the first is you and me i mean we're americans and our cost of living and everything is going to go through the roof and everything we buy is going to go higher and higher in price and we are going to suffer so that some and some businesses some industrialist can

do better people will have jobs but are there it is their standard of living better probably not because their costs go through the roof a standard of living goes down that's the first collateral damage or three hundred million of us american citizens and american taxpayers we're the first fell out of that and that day is not what they're trying to achieve with that i don't think one thing that i wasn't clear on that i've heard people on different sides of it say but you would know best because you've been in the trenches you are in the trenches when we talk about wall street and speculators and what they benefit more from and overvaluing of the dollar a devaluation of the dollar. dippin. just got to say if the dollar goes down three hundred million americans have a lower standard of living because everything we. increases in prized and we and we use. if you have

a prized currency then obviously it's good for american citizens a sound i've never heard many people many many knowledgeable people say that you're basing that currency is good for a country but an overpriced currency wars that you can this and we can all go to paris or go to paris for the weekend if we won't do that you have. to get by a lot of things from abroad i quality goods from abroad yeah i was just tense what's a lot of my money didn't go very far at all speaking of this issue germany has a trade surplus china is one of the largest importer of german goods there the two of the world's top exporters the euro is relatively you know at least stronger than the dollar so does this kind of add to what you're saying that it takes more than devaluing a currency to make an export economy in the long haul. oh absolutely germany and japan both have circuses with you know trade surpluses with the united states and

their currencies have been going up against united states for decades that chemical are the japanese yen is up about five hundred percent over against the dollar over the past several decades and they still have a balance of trade surplus with the united states and with most of the world no no no you cannot i mean that the politicians like to blame it on the chinese the chinese have big trade deficits with many other countries including germany and japan as you just pointed up and yet those current countries have a much higher cost of doing business much higher labor we do and yet there's still extremely competitive and it's largely because of quality and service and being attentive to the customers. and speaking of germany merkel is going to be in china looking for beijing's support on the ailing euro she reportedly wants china to contribute via the i.m.f. to a financial firewall to stem contagion from the grow zone crisis what do you think china will and should say to her. well i've. i

wouldn't i'm not buying european bonds if i were the chinese i would say no however the chinese do have another reason that they might it would be very cheap foreign aid for them it would be very cheap ways to buy influence and power if you will because it let's say they spend a few scores of billions of dollars buying bonds in europe then europe has to pay a whole lot more attention to them at their i admit it the world bank at the u.n. had said earlier said to you what the europeans have to be much nicer to the chinese if that happens and so i mean as an investment i wouldn't do it not throw a long term investment if i'm trying to buy something else and that's another consideration and you said that you're certainly not buying at european bonds right now right that's why you just said yeah i have that is right ok so it may it may be a very good speculation right now but i'm not very good at speculating i just like

that but long term investments and it looks as though things are going to be better in europe for a while for a while politicians just like to get through the next election but longer term it's still a huge problem and you think radical and with those political interests are we seeing bank bailouts and we're just not hearing about the hear from john rogers about it but part of your closing market numbers. thank. you.

welcome back to capital account german chancellor angela merkel is in china reportedly seeking a little cash from china to help europe also reportedly pressuring china to do more on iran now according to reports so far sounds like the chinese premier is saying iran i don't think so stop politicising our commercial interests this european bailout fund though that i'll consider so why what would be the benefit of that will i ask jim rogers and also he told us about his investment outlook for china but first more on europe you've been critical of the eurozone monetizing the debt and i think it was interesting i was in switzerland i was at davos and some of the bankers there were saying that the l t r o has been very successful.