and in january by a group of journalists and bloggers activists artists writers and other public figures and statements made in tedious leg t.v. host and now activist. the latest africa or the head of a charity fund and blogger he's idea that also known as dr lisa. ordinator of the blue buckets 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 similar position there are the better the league's main goal is to ensure fair elections 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 we've also arranged to put together a unified database to keep the check and the election fraud to post according to its founders around ten thousand observers are needed to ensure a fair election in moscow alone yeah it's great that the civil society wants to be more active but it's critically important not to cross the line and observers not on their position it is serious so if the mutations are not to take sides in the political process. the league sounders say they'll shut the organisation 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 of promise from candidates the league just may secure enough access to a fact that we monitor the vote in march as long as it avoids taking sides and protects its neutrality is going to forty moscow i've been president hamid karzai accused they say of killing children and i was trying on wednesday official launched an investigation claiming foreign forces wrongly targeted civilians after receiving an correct report that men were preparing an attack in the area they're bombing came just a week after the united states announced that it might stop combat operations in afghanistan earlier than expected but the strike could start already strained relations between a cousin and his western bakos a mounting death toll for documentary filmmaker clay clay bourne things that despite the condemnation of civilian casualties in the country will continue to rise. he had to put on a certain pretense this j.

have any viability any legitimacy as an afghan google or something like this happens but he is basically a tool of the american occupation there so we can expect any real demand change from here this kind of thing obviously doesn't win hearts and minds this happened in the same area were asked to be killed french troops working i think because the u.s. is planning a pull out of the movie next day or because you're injured or moving your troops out we can expect more airstrikes and most of the actions in afghanistan you are a start two thousand and eight. two thousand and ten in terms of civilian casualties i'm afraid we're going to see that trend continue in two thousand and twelve precisely because they know that they have to pull out safely because they know that again it's. the u.s.

army private bradley manning accused of passing secret documents and evidence of war crimes to wiki leaks has been nominated for the nobel peace prize has been put forward by a peace research center in the last armed are icelandic parliamentary group the twenty four year old days away is her court martial in the us and faces life in prison and m.p. bridget out yonder to who leads the icelandic nomination says exposing crime shouldn't be regarded as one bradley manning deserves this honor because the. women most who are long whistle on war crimes it is not a criminal act to blow the whistle on war crimes or to blow the whistle on any crime and we feel that. these leaks for example the meaning of hello mona. the wall. people who have. put their name to war in afghanistan and iraq through their governments need to now

we're going to going on there and by knowing what was going on there and we see this in can apply more pressure on our governments to be accountable all of the quotes that have been put out in our names we do not. lower the bradley manning case be the person who is in just treatment be in a chorus of silencing of people who are courageous people who want to do their civic duty by reporting on crimes. or or military. let's have a quick look at some other international news stories this hour israeli air strikes on the gaza strip one civilian dead and for those injured the man killed was a god of the form israeli army confirms the bombing saying they were aimed at five belonging to terror groups and were a response to a short range rocket attack from gaza. rescuers have boarded

a five year old girl there live from the rubble of a house flattened by a massive avalanche that killed ten people in southern cos of an official say she was found buried under ten metres of snow after officers heard her voice and a mobile phone ringing the avalanche hit the village of ross and it sounds saturday destroying several houses rescue efforts one passes still missing have been suspended for a time due to bad weather and subzero temperatures. the grammy awards have paid tribute to trace whitney houston has died at the age of forty eight she was found in the room at the beverly hilton hotel on the eve of the ceremony and she was a ten shore star turned in los angeles despite massive global success four of us three decades her career was marred by a turbulent marriage and drug abuse an autopsy has been but no information on its findings has been revealed at the request of detectives investigating.

news for this hour of back with the headlines in just a. resistance

is not politics but a culture. is could test. on its own. above. cultures of resistance on marching. to. the band

. culture is the same us we are going to try to build on our journey home of the most of all we're trying to focus on these hard times there is no shortage of austerity in the slashing of budgets and the shrinking of the welfare state generate jobs and return us to. wealthy british style but. sometimes it's crisis management. market why not i'm going to find out what's really happening to the global economy with max cause or for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to kaiser report

on. the mission of free accreditation free zones for chargers free arrangement the free risk free studio tied for free. download free broadcast quality and video for your media projects a free media dog r.t. dot com. gave. you. to. see.

the book well done for the first science technology innovation all those developments from around russia we've got the future covered. for. the. first.

a combative this is the wiki on i'll see the headlines. the greek parliament gave the green line saying new sense of cautious terroristic on the demanded by the left before they hound a hundred sociability viewer bay not that despite mass protests of the scent of athens we saw dozens huddle clashes with police as rises torched buildings and looted shots. they are oblique calls on the yuan to great joint peacekeeping force for syria as they were neither asian aims to mount pressure on president assad

damascus has rejected the proposal as a hostile audience. and iran promises to reveal major advances in its nuclear program which it unsafe is for peaceful added your papa says despite the long list the western factions imposed against it. as the headlines of the next crosstalk. well the turks syrians technology innovation all the list of elements from around russia we've got the future covered. and. hello and welcome to cross talk i'm peter lavelle and these hard times there is no shortage of austerity can the slashing of budgets and the shrinking of the welfare

state generate jobs and return us to prosperity and is the pursuit of austerity inherently anti-democratic. to cross-talk austerity measures around the world i'm joined by people magazine in london she is president and founder of prince a palace asset management also in london we have fragged his cause philippe is he is a senior lecturer in international business at the university of kent and in new york we cross to dmitri papa dimitrios he is the executive vice president of bard college our focus is crosstalk rosen a fact that means you can jump in anytime you want dmitri if i go to you first the new york can austerity bring back prosperity because we have unemployment is right on the increase particularly in the euro zone and the prospects for employment are pretty bleak how can you have prosperity when there's so much unemployment and

people would say austerity creates unemployment because of the loss of jobs in the public sector. well of blindness the. decline in moment or a decline in the economy is not the right medicine clearly prosperity can only come when there is an increase in demand an increase in demand if you doesn't come from the private sector you need to come from the public sector so therefore when one talks about you want to not be as general to suggest it can bring prosperity clearly on an unemployment rate of over eight point three percent as it is in the united states cannot happen by itself on the by the private markets unless the forecast showing that the economy actually will grow but the girl doesn't come automatically and we have seen that in europe as well where there would be in the

southern tier southern economies in europe or even in some of the northern economies france and also germany is actually experiencing some decline in trends ok people what do you think about that i mean i mean we see a sturdy. with a vengeance in europe and we can go to southern europe all the way up to germany the french are be experiencing it as well how can it is this the right formula and dimitri says it's not the right for me and to bring us back to prosperity because a lot more and more people are just being a misery. yeah well i think look the bottom line is it's really interesting people won't agree to us territory or comply with us dirty if things are getting better you kind of need to be in bad times to get people to understand how serious a debt problem is and that it needs to be addressed i mean nobody was interested in addressing the debt problem during the boom it's only during the bust the people start to understand why but it is true that i stared he doesn't alone create price

prosperity what does create prosperity are small entrepreneurs and this is really important two thirds of the net new jobs in all industrialized economies are created by companies that employ less than fifty people now when government is shrinking this actually does create some opportunities for the private sector and new york city recently announced that they can't afford to keep the public buildings clean anymore so they privatized the contracts so some private company got a five million dollar contract i'm all for that but does it create prosperity overnight no and doesn't create prosperity by itself definitely not it's what creates it is innovation and change but the fact is that when you have spent and you earn you can't make your way back to prosperity until you fix your debt problem that's one of the reasons we can't fix the debt problem by adding more debt to it it just pushes the problem into the future so it's not the key to growth that doesn't make growth happen but you also can't have sustainable growth if you don't do it ok if

sailing because what do you think about that what is to formulate and where does austerity play in all of this here dmitri things we're doing at the wrong time it's very very interesting observation what do you think. well i think i think both speakers had some points were very very important yes dimitri made the point about growth and obviously we need to always remember that that is not just an absolute number is basically as a proportion of their gross national product of its country and then i think people mention one word which is really really crucial which is innovation i think what we're seeing though at the moment and the main problem that we're seeing at the moment is the austerity is not equally distributed amongst the different parts of the population so effectively you get some people paying more than others without necessarily deserving than and the other thing is you you you apply austerity or is on telly and this is going back to what people said about innovation you apply

instead of your digitally you achieve nothing the government will still need to build infrastructure the government will still need to educate people because that's that's the basic role of the government and this is how the through the upgrade of human capital you can actually create people that small and medium enterprises can then employ and innovate and create new knowledge and take the economy forward so i think the problem is not as simple as you know we need to spend more money or we need to allow small in these small or medium enterprises to to grow i think what we're lacking at the moment is two things this fair distribution of austerity measures that's one and the second thing is the strategy direction which i don't see it happening anywhere in the world at the moment we're all talking about cuts which is fine yes we need to send all governments need to send a signal to the different markets financial markets primarily who look like they don't need the world at the moment but on the other hand you need to think how you spend your money in the more effective and more efficient way and where you spend

your money is the key question that we need to address i think as a key question we go back to dimitri's that's apparently ok people go ahead but that's a political decision that's very interesting that's a political decision not necessarily have a commonsense go ahead. but that is the point that all these decisions are just and that's why i want to follow on from the comment to say look austerity is one way and which a state defaults and the real issue here is the burden of debt is so enormous that human beings can't bear the pain of paying it off so what are the ways in which a default can occur well you can do the argentine style will just never pay back then you don't have to do a stereo or you can do it the greeks are doing which is will pay him back but a little later and a little less that's the haircut option we're going to see a lot of that in europe the third is austerity the state defaults on you the citizen makes you pay more taxes makes you work harder makes you retire later all that stuff doesn't pick up your rubbish anymore the fourth option is inflation and

that's what the u.k. is doing and i would argue that's how the u.s. is going to get involved on its debt ultimately and then the last option is devaluation which you may or may not be able to do depending on the situation but the point is a stair it is only one way of achieving a default and so it is correct you have to think where does the burden of pain fall on the citizens depending on each of these choices and that is a political decision dmitri you want to jump in there go ahead. but you know yes i think or study it is a very loaded word and i think it's very difficult for us to determine how to define a clearly horizontal list is not the appropriate measure to apply it one has to determine why is it that we were brought to the position to apply osteria do you know austerity in the united states is different in greece greece does not have its own currency hardly in the united states it has its own its own currency so

there is one k.'s to be made greece could default the united states cannot default so there is a difference between between those two also when we were allowed to increase we have to find actually why and how did you increase it's not easy to suggest that somehow or other since all the counters in the euro zone were allowed to borrow the banks were allowed to borrow at the very low interest rates and pile up on on government debt which was then a little bit higher so they can make their profits this is not all to mean to turn out and say well we allow this to happen but now it's time that the party's over and therefore the population has to pay for that ok do it in a clearly a very significant back to london frankly because i think what's really interesting here is that the greek situation opposed to what's like going on in the united states is that the greeks have just lost their sovereignty i mean like it or not

it's berlin in frankfurt and brussels they're managing their economy and this is something that's really a stark departure from what people thought the european union was supposed to be about go ahead the the problem the problem is that germany and france are not managing the greek economy they're just managing the great dead and over the last over the last couple of days i haven't heard anything about how we can return. economy to growth we're still looking at very some very deep recession figures for the get go and for the rest of the year last night the indication was that the economy will shrink another five percent until the end of this year and someone made the scenario about the return integrals in twenty thirteen which i don't necessarily see happening and the just the indication that germany and france are going to create this new fund where all the money that they're giving to greece are going to go in order to pay that the. basically the greek debt off instead of money

being spent on the economy to develop the infrastructure it's there not managing the greek economy there's nothing and that's i might's i might be provocative here but that's always the fear that if you're an international monetary fund we people who go to you i mean as well i mean you're right you should go ahead dimitri and i will go to the break go ahead you yes i think i think you should know that greece does not have an industrial base it is basically a consolidation economy so you're absolutely correct one hundred thirty billion euros are going to be used to actually roll over the debt of the review exists and therefore it will need to do anything in terms of a girl establishing a growth path for the greek economy to grow so you're right in two thousand and thirteen is a pure fantasy to expect the greece is going to grow it is not possible for greece to actually step to to actually develop. surpluses so they can actually service

instead the debt is going to be very high and it's not going to be salvaged with this new bailout plan a paper for if i go to you know a great panel before i'd like you before we go to the break or remit paying off the debt let's be clear it's paying banks ok and this is they're getting a pay raise and this is this saving the banks and the banking system i mean that the average person in the right has nothing to do with the average person in athens . correct and that is why they won't be enough for greece to default they have to actually exit the euro and get control of the car see and go all right we're going to go to ensure are you going to go to a short break here and after that show break we'll continue our discussion on austerity stay with r.t. . if you. still. want.

wealthy british style. but i. don't. like the. markets weiner. scandal. find out what's really happening to the global economy with max cause or for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to kaiser report

on our g. q. welcome back to crossfire by peter lavelle remind you we're talking about austerity in troubled times. and you can. dmitri in new york and i to go to you i'd like to read a quote from angela merkel she said in this crisis we have reached a whole new level of cooperation we have arrived at a sort of european home affairs europe is domestic policy that's a remarkable statement because that's that that's a very incredible political statement because we're talking about fiscal and political union to the max now because greece has lost its sovereignty at law it's lost its economic decision making ability and if trends continue others call the

small countries within the euro zone will also follow suit. this may be a remarkable political statement but not an inspiring state. i think that with no one talks about it fiscal union or. one has to be able to understand what this means the united states of europe need to be thought as the united states of america you know just as america has a center of fiscal fiscal agent that's called the united states treasury that does not exist in europe what exists in europe is that every county cannot have a budget deficit above the three percent and to also furthermore that from now on every continent in the euro zone should not even have three percent reduction have a constitutional amendment that it should be even much lower than that even a one percent except in some difficult times this is not what i would call the

fiscal union this is it is not possible for every member of the eurozone group to create surpluses so that it is possible to then the euro the euro zone to be in a and even keel based on the definition of. america believes and president sarkozy made a major fan stay with you when you were on if i can say with you in new york a very but when countries join the european union i'm sorry the eurozone they didn't sign up to this kind of economic policy at all did they i mean this is turning into a straight jacket i mean people didn't vote for this they voted to have a common currency there and we're talking about you know you're right it was incorrect because the euro but you know the euro project is an incomplete project you cannot have a monetary union without the fiscal union and along the same lines in the united states and you can have a political union or you know.