syria would involve countries willing to prop up the opposition more pressure on the regime direct going to action as well about what reports suggest that the british and the qatari special forces are already in the conflict zone and while the u.s. and its allies criticize russia for supplying military hardware to damascus there are now calls from america to arm the opposition about his murder for the region's already being flooded by a power made in the u.s. . at the united nations security council america holds one permanent seat but when it comes to weapons the world's largest arms exporter is often seen as sitting on two chairs they say there isn't an international embargo on arms preventing them from doing that that is a fact but that doesn't change the immorality of supplying a dictatorial regime that is killing its people in massive numbers every day and we

are are deeply concerned about that as u.s. officials continue publicly scolding countries over relations with syria critics say the accusations are being thrown from a tremendous glasshouse the u.s. is a hugely difficult in this regard because they've long been the largest arms dealer and most of those weapons the us sold the story clearly more than four hundred billion dollars worth since the one nine hundred sixty s. have gone to the middle east and you can't argue. seriously that it's made the region any more stable in the past few years nearly fifty percent of u.s. weapons exports have been flowing to the middle east many countries with the biggest appetite for american weapons have also made headlines for carrying out brutal crackdowns against dissidents and opposition groups if you are are fog you're ok in france there are thugs you're not i mean this is for all of us who have been overseas the duplicity and. of american foreign policy is painfully.

evident according to congressional figures america has sold one point four billion dollars worth of weapons to bahrain since two thousand and america struck its single biggest arms deal when saudi arabia ordered sixty billion dollars worth of arms the us has long subsidize the israeli military and recently supplied them with bunker buster bombs experts say this strategic arming of middle eastern countries is aimed at iran and extending u.s. dominance in the region. is going on. against your own it's not all about you know human rights. it's all about some geopolitical f.b.i. whistle blower sibel edmonds has accused america of playing particularly dirty while leading a campaign for regime change in syria but it's not some kind of. simultaneously

op risings situation where people are a ballet and then suddenly they are mysteriously armed and mysteriously arms are being smuggled into syria from cherokee well who who is providing this arms nobody is asking in the us media well these are u.s. arms shipped to turkey this is the u.s. military complex flush with record revenue continues to lobby its interests on capitol hill arms manufacturers are some of the biggest companies in america they're some of the most powerful lockheed martin not only do they make an so for the defense department around the world they're a federal contractor and many other levels there are going to vote in elections this statue outside the u.n. headquarters is a symbol of global peace and nonviolence but critics say the idea has been twisted by the u.s. which goes around advocating peace arming countless conflicts all for the sake of profit arena point ny r.t.

new york. well russia has been trying to mediate a peaceful solution to the syrian conflict for months now and wants to host talks between the warring sides but one that middle east expert tells us here at r.t. that negotiations will be hard to bring about as long as the syrian opposition is simply rallying for regime change bashar assad after the meeting with the russian foreign minister sergei lavrov expressed his readiness however the other side is not expressing its readiness there are some members of the syrian opposition who are expressing readiness however there are other sides a lot including the muslim brotherhood who actually don't seem to want to participate in the gauche ations and are setting preconditions or saying in order to enter negotiations assad must fall and i think that is part of a what's to those on the the whole thing for the west is not about in the gauche ations is about overthrowing a regime which is a part of my bro brought up block which washington or which some western states western powers want to get rid of including those are also wants to get rid of them

. this is our team now greek politicians last minute agreement on a fresh austerity plan so hasn't exactly been created with open arms a forty eight hour strike is being called by the country's two major labor unions and eurozone member states say they will put even more conditions on greece before handing out a second bailout after a struggle athens did manage to broker a multi-party austerity deal which has been demanded by creditors and was in place just a matter of hours before your of ministers met in brussels but they are still unhappy and unwilling to hand over one hundred thirty billion euros the republican now has the part of package of cuts and reforms by sunday the journalist closest on with this says the situation in the country is deteriorating and the consequences could be disastrous. a lot we get from all these measures. if we have all the default then we are in this situation where we have to face she know death from

starvation in greece this situation in greece is extreme at the moment we have children playing ping in their school because they don't have proper breakfast and because they don't they don't have enough food so you realize that the she traced is getting worse and worse we have a lot of people as i told you that they are hungry at the moment first of all they demand the election which i have to tell you right here and now they want elections they want this situation to be seen second they have been wondering who's recipe are we forming at the moment increases i mean the greek government recipe country and the i.m.f. and their ship it simply doesn't work. out it's going to be all views that troika gives their main. orders and you know that we get more and worse in the last two years. as they say and i agree with them easier to see this time to morrow rice from the west than to see all these orders and all these measures bring us to

growth and bring us back to normal life. and there robert all the chair of the london based think tank the bruges group believes that it's the european currency itself that's pushing greece to the edge greece is in severe economic difficulties and it's failed to meet many of the targets that the eurozone in the i.m.f. has set it for what it has to do in terms of to be able to reform its finances to be able to pay back some of the debts that it so that has been largely caused by issues to do with the euro itself and the problem that the euro creates and how it makes the greek economy competitive in it so basically greece cannot survive while it is in the euro and with a more stable two measures which are being forced upon it or just hurt the greek economy even further wages have been cut by thirty percent on average in greece pensions are being carved people are finding it very hard to survive because of the

result of the austerity measures in the problems caused by the euro what they're doing at the moment is just throwing more money at the problem and really putting back the day when greece will have to deform will have to leave the euro. now at ten minutes past the hour here in moscow still to come in a program separated spouses by israel or something thousands of palestinians from living with israeli families. civil society in russia is moving to the forefront of politics with a mission to keep the upcoming presidential election fair and transparent a group of leading public and pro-active figures are joining forces and crucially they seem to have the support of the candidates has got a person office. it doesn't take long to find videos of alleged violations during the recent parliamentary vote in russia just

a couple of clicks is enough since years of these files have flooded the internet and even though most of the allegations are still to be proven in courts tens of thousands of people have been taking to the streets demanding fair elections with marches presidential votes just around the corner events are unfolding quickly where. people want to vote responsibly and to know where their villages go they want political competition independent courts and media forming the voters league is not meant the idea was floating in the air the voters league was officially founded in january by a group of journalists bloggers activists orders reuters and other public figures and statements mean g.d.s. clegg t.v. host and now activist. ladies. or the head of a charity fund and blogger elizabeth also known as dr lisa.

or other school math ordinator of the blue book its movement fighting for equal rights on roads for everyone. our league is an opportunity to gather people who are not indifferent to what's happening the more people with a civil position there are the better the leagues main goal is to ensure a fair election. it's published a list of initiatives on the web divided into groups that everyone can be a part of public discussions and online votes are the key instruments and letters have been sent to all presidential candidates asking them to cooperate with the league and even though the project is less than a month old everyone has so far agreed including pledging middleton another candidate businessman mikhail prokhorov has already struck a deal with the leak you have to go on willing to authorize one hundred fifty thousand league observers was also arranged to put together a unified database to keep track of the election protocols according to its founders around ten thousand observers are needed to ensure

a fair election in moscow alone. it's great that the civil society wants to be more active but it's clearly important not to cross the line and observers not only are positioned it is serious so if limitations not to take sides in the political process. the leagues founders say they'll shut the organization down if it ever starts turning into a political movement claiming they are keen to work with all candidates equally there's no doubt society has changed more people want to have more influence on russia's political life perhaps that's why it took less than one month for the voters league to establish ties with both the authorities and the opposition and with the help promise from candidates the league just may secure enough access to effectively monitor the vote in march as long as it avoids taking sides and protects its neutrality is going off r t moscow. all right you can always get all the latest news and updates on. just

a click away some of the stories i read today for example. the q one seventy drone that was downed in. the united states only now it's pink and about an eighth of the original size. also online spoke to germany's forced to switch to nuclear energy just one year to declaring it was giving it up. it could have with us today this is our city now russia has over one hundred billionaires many of whom made their fortunes when state property was privatized in the one nine hundred ninety s. but after decades of reaping the profits they may soon have to give

a fat share back presidential candidate of lot of importance has a proposer russia very robin hood tax let's get some details on this now and speak to our teaser business that are nick poole here joining us live on the program and it good to see you on this so tell us about how exactly is this supposed to work even if it ever does become law will the rich people could they just a rock up to the doors of the kremlin sporting bags of money i mean it's putin simply playing robin hood. it's probably going to be done by the tax man wearing a suit carrying a sheaf of papers i think the serious point here is that putin is in full campaign mode and he's basically it's only to sort of. cover some of that money the oligarchs have acquired in some cases perhaps fraudulently or at least not entirely honestly which he put into it when he's making a speech yesterday now it's quite tricky to get money back from people you have to

do it you can't just go and empty their bank accounts and this is sort of raise the number of problems so the details are quite thin on the ground or how it will happen and we are talking vast sums of money i mean i mean how how much could it bring to the russian economy could we really see a bout of the rich giving to the poor i mean they're certainly i mean we all know there are certainly enough super yachts to go around there are enough so. we see the rich giving to the port not voluntarily probably so as i say it will have to be done. in the in that want of law but there are some precedents for this in the u.k. actually after the product was ation period in the noise and eighty's under thatcher this whole bill which telecom which gasoline. and the the government. later decided they'd sort of all the families who were much too cheaply and then want to go and get some more of that money and so they live with a windfall tax of about eight billion pounds which is you know not an inconsiderable sum of money so that is a possibility but let's talk about the timing here how is all of this going to go

down with the political lobby here in moscow just less than a month away now from the election the presidential election how is this going to work with voters do you think will the prime minister also come up with the idea for luxury tax which was actually on things like super because. he's quite explicit about the idea that this is not going to be a tax on the middle class it's just for this very small minority of super wealthy people now it's difficult to generalize about. any population feels but i think it's a sense that say they don't really like the tycoons because the oligarchs and taxing them not likely to be a vote loser let's put it that way eventually only going to mention the tycoons i want to put in their rivals for the presidency we call prokhorov one of the country's richest playboys loving the bachelor lifestyle of fast cars and fast boats i mention he's probably none too chuffed about this idea we've actually but we haven't spoken to we have spoken to a couple of other of the. billionaires and they base their well it's very good very

difficult with very difficult to implement appropriate case in point in this regard because he owned. for two hundred fifty million dollars sold it for around about ten billion but he has sold it so how do you know. nickel in order to get profit off it was not being bought out by a series of other people you can't really tax them so if you impose the windfall tax on noise nickel you're getting the wrong guy and you can't go an empty mist procrustes bank without causing a lot of problems you've certainly been a rush for a number of years perhaps it's time for you to give back to the country and cash in your superyacht just a humble reporter for the present one of the only cypriot that i have happens to be a yellow robot that. that i play with in the morning when you should trade up time to upgrade pool from the art of business structure thank you. we're coming to you live from the heart of moscow this is our city and israeli citizenship law is denying thousands of palestinians the right to permanently settle down with their

israeli spouses and children and the government says the law was designed for security reasons but as paula slayer reports it seems the battle against terror could actually be doing more harm than good tearing apart families this is the document that's ruining land is life it makes no mention of a university degree a husband or two children it's simply states she's palestinian and therefore illegal and wanted in israel i have a stay here now. i don't have any rights just to breathe and eat and drink and for me it's not the life but a lot of chooses this non life because it's where her husband and children live by law very israeli where is the rest of her family live across the border in janine in palestine each time we travel during the week. goes through a perth and i and the kids go through another. what does

what does it remind us i have to walk. until now known as move between the two worlds with temporary visas issued by television but she's afraid they could stop at the government tightens its grip on an eight year old law denying permanent citizenship to palestinians married to israelis it's trying to limit the graphic in growth of the arab citizens encourage. citizens who marry palestinians from the west bank in gaza or from jordan to actually immigrate to actually leave israel israel says the law is for security purposes and it's trying to prevent palestinians from taking advantage of being able to get an israeli id through marriage and then carry out attacks on israeli citizens but human rights groups don't buy that they petitioned the law arguing that in the last fourteen years more than one hundred fifty thousand palestinians entered israel because of family ties with israelis only fifty four of them were

ever found to be a security risk. in upholding the so-called citizenship law the israeli supreme court president said it was one of the most difficult questions in the state's history the battle against terror while at the same time maintaining the nation's democratic nature we are talking about thousands of family that as a result of the decision of the supreme court that validated upheld the law they are now living under the tangible threat of being forcibly separated from their spouses from their children from their parents so we are indeed talking about a huge issue with a huge effect on thousands of people this law is thinking about it. i mean one. of degree before having your very plain you are jewish. but in the meantime it threatens to tear families apart as now face the very real danger that they might not be able to continue living

together policy r.t. israel. nearly time for kareena with the business but for now is the world update some of the global news in brief and germany's finance minister has been caught on tape saying that portugal's bailout plan may need to be revised once a second bailout for greece has been finalized the comments came at a meeting with other eurozone ministers the first acknowledgement from a high level year official that portugal may need more time and money to get its economy back on track the country received a seventy eight billion euro bailout last april and since fallen into a deep recession. pakistan's supreme court has rejected an appeal by the prime minister against a contempt of court charge. will be charged unless he agrees to reopen a corruption case against the country's president has refused claiming the

president has immunity from prosecution while in office if found guilty the prime minister could face up to six months in prison and be disqualified from holding public office. hungary's central bank is literally burning money to help keep people warm in europe's deadly cold snap the bank has been transforming the old notes into bundles that can be burned by those in need of heat being provided as a source of warmth for the past four years and the need is particularly acute right now hundreds of people have died from cold across eastern europe in just the past few days. a bit later on here on r.t.o. we've got our must go out program to stay with us for that for now kareena and the business. thank you or a hello and welcome to business here in r.t. thanks for joining with us russia's second largest lender will buy shares from its

minority shareholders at a price they paid during its i.p.o. in two thousand and seven the stocks were floated at thirteen cope express share and as you can see it's never risen above the listing price currently stocks are trading at around half the price they were initially sold on the market buyback will cost the bank around six hundred million dollars and will be implemented in the next three months the head of it will be on a course and says the buyback is a one off event. room. we live in a time characterized by deep in prolonged financial crisis the instruments that work for decades of failing today otherwise the germans would not be rescuing the greeks the e.c.b. would not be giving interest free loans of course such moves cannot be the every investor must understand he's responsible for the shares he bought but in russia this was one of the first ship placements and back in two thousand and seven none of us really understood the world was heading towards

a global recession. even though some people are happy they will get their money back it may result in further problems down the line the share buyback applies only to small sure holders and i do you from north capitol says this could pave the way for conflict and lawsuits. this initiative creates so we're all this didn't give arbitrage opportunities which are not qualified as a purely market and almost practices when you see the same thing costing different amount of money you can buy cheaply somewhere and so it more expensive somewhere else if the certain category of shareholders are grunters approval which it must be explicitly explained way the other category or shareholders are not despite those buyback fears the t.v. says it has taken into account all legal risks everything will be carried out

according to the law what's more some experts seem to be unfazed by the move of business r.t. spoke to international rating agency standard and poor's and they believe that the buyback will not affect the bank's credit profile in the long term. it's not really in trouble to the strategy of the bank itself and you wouldn't expect this to happen again in this this really is not something that makes much of a difference from there when we started poorest look at the institution and look at its credit profile or potential performance in the future. business out she was giving you the latest updates on this story as we get the money while let's check out the markets first europe could slide into a red after the e.u. finance ministers held back a rescue package for greece and european central bank has kept the key interest rate at record low one percent in a move to stave off possible government default on bank failures the pussy is down over a third of a percent while the dax is down just under one percent of all the downturn barclays

has reported a three percent fall in profits to five point nine billion pounds last year hit by a slowdown at its investment bank. here's moscow where the markets are in the negative as well i'm isaac says losing almost two percent while the artist is dropping almost one of the most of the blue chips pointing down. let's have a look at some individual shall most of them isaac's continues the slides all from previous session following the buyback announced once more news gold is raising new losses following reports about its failed tie up with. we'll give you more on that later and gas from there is down around half a percent the company has reported a seven percent increase in production in two thousand and eleven. now currencies the euro is lower against the dollar amid uncertainty about the greek debt meanwhile we are all is weighing on the ruble which is losing value against the european on the u.s.

currency. crude oil is falling from a three weeks high as concerns about europe's debt crisis over way signs of an economic recovery in the u.s. brant blend is trading at just under one hundred eighteen dollars per barrel. as that over ninety nine dollars a barrel. well that's the latest i have for you this hour but don't forget and always the finest one business stories on our website r.t. dot com slash. the.

culture is that so much simpler and each musician has a parachute on the mark where the feet are in the battle for syria the international community is as divided as the syrians themselves when it comes to resolving a situation. if

you are just joining us a very warm welcome to. your headlines syrian state media reports several blasts in the country's second biggest city. killed at least the government is blaming what it calls terrorists it comes as america gathers a coalition of nations to help bring down the syrian regime in direct. response to the latest wave of austerity cuts which they say is pushing the economy towards a financial abyss the measures were a crucial step toward securing a desperately needed one hundred and thirty billion euro bailout package. a group

of public figures from russia's civil society gather widespread support on their quest to keep the presidential elections fair and transparent after succeeding in establishing ties with both. the opposition they are planning to monitor the vote. to stay with us here in our next how do you shake off the chill and enjoy the russian winter to stick around for some silliness in the snow with moscow.