ming lives the company responsibles now owned by dow chemical a major olympic sponsor meredith alexander was part of the game's ethics watchdog but is just quit in protest all of it is supposed to be about this and instead all of us are going to have the toxic legacy of dow chemicals. fifteen thousand people died when poisonous gas leaked from a factory in rural india the subsequent fall out killed another ten thousand congenital birth defects in the area a ten times the norm in the rest of india for was ten at the time the gas she inhaled left permanent damage and. i can believe that how it would all been high and the money's been. fair i got just one thousand dollars compensation part of a four hundred seventy million dollar payout in one thousand nine hundred nine by union carbide factory owners dow chemical company in two thousand and one but

denies any lingering liabilities but the indian government disagrees demanding down stumps up one point six billion dollars to clean up the contamination that lives on people's building that water that has been going down needed union carbide factory children are being born with deformities people have more cancers there's growth lead our nation and boy is there is there is god have a problem with their periods all kinds of issues that have have arisen from the legit see that has been left behind by this boy this factory dow chemical is paying for the fabric that will be draped around the stadium olympic rules forbid any advertising during the games itself but doubt is allowed to splash its logo all over the earth and before the games actually begin. it's now said it's not even

going to do that says it's nothing to do with the protests but it does mean it's paying seven million pounds for something that won't even show its name but dow will still be able to call itself a sustainable a limb pick partner and organizers say their conscience is clean supposedly thanks to a green light from the ethics watchdog absolutely i do not agree with that it was the question was asked to look at the process and there were discussions within the question and i myself presented a lot of evidence about what happened in bhopal and then i was shocked to see a public statement come out i would never have signed off that statement dow chemical refused to speak to us so did london organizers instead they issued this statement from twenty twelve chief lord coe. i absolutely stand by our procurement process. distance the most sustainable solution to our rock and we are comfortable with that a boy called from indian athletes has been called off but india is

a limp it committee is still demanding down to be dropped with just six months to go it's unlikely they'll get their wish leaving claims of a sustainable legacy severely in doubt either bennett r.t. london. but now to some other stories from around the world this hour the leader of a left wing of rebel group has been captured in peru after being shot in most jungle region for drug trafficking. artemio has now been airlifted to hospital and the government saying his arrest signals at the feet of the shining path. of kill thousands of people in the country began his battle against the state for twenty years the u.s. previously offered a five million dollars reward for information about the leader. of the stance prime minister yousuf raza gilani could face six months in prison and disqualification from office he's being charged contempt of the final court order to go in a corruption case against his political. president late late kickback scheme i said

it was a very nice with companies in one nine hundred ninety s. he was later given immunity from prosecution that was eventually overturned by the country's supreme court not a supporter said the chief justice is either pursuing a personal vendetta or been backed other pakistani military. operations to pump almost two and a half thousand tons of fuel from the stricken costa concordia cruise liner began a month after it capsized it's been repeatedly delayed because of bad weather officials say it will now take four weeks to offload all the fuel on board seventeen people died and fifteen are still missing after the nine are run aground off the northern coast of italy the captain was said to be among the first to flood the ship and is now under house arrest. but our latest cross-talk program is coming up on our team just a few minutes but before that it's the business news with. hello

and welcome to business here on our team who started with greece word that problems may have come one step closer to resolution as the country approved even more harsh austerity measures to save the nation from bankruptcy now the historic vote paves the way for the country's european partners and the i.m.f. to release one hundred thirty billion euros in rescue loans greece is due to repay a fourteen and i have billion euro bond on march twentieth and needs the bailout funding in place to avoid a devastating default now the country's loan package is expected to get final approval of the eurozone finance ministers meeting this wednesday. but sounds like a look at the markets now will start with the exchange rates of the euro is gaining value on easing fears over the greek debt crisis and stronger or oil it's pushing the ruble higher against both the european and the u.s. currencies and let's take a look at oil crude advance from a three day low after greece's parliament approved austerity measures easing

concern that europe's that prices will worsen and curb commodity demand. is trading at around ninety nine and a half dollars per barrel while the prime blend is over one hundred eighteen. and in asian markets are up following news from greece as well x. waters are among the main gainers in tokyo with carmaker mazda up over a percent so careless the shares generally shrugged off for a fourth that japan's economy contract by larger than expected margin in the last quarter of two thousand and eleven and telecoms are on the rise in hong kong with china mobile one percents. here in russia on the markets have recovered from friday's losses both horses are gaining with the r.t.s. over two percent in the black let's take a look at the index movers on the my sex gas problem is up on news its european market share grew by one percentage. twenty seven percent last year. farm standard

is in the black after reporting it has increased revenues by over forty percent around one of the half billion dollars in two thousand and eleven and bucking the trend is gold make apologies gold or news merger talks between the company and another miner polymath will have collapsed mark rubenstein from measurable financial corp looks ahead to this week's right. this week is going to be. very important in terms of markers to do so there is a bunch of markers that just six coming out over the united states and. particular compared to the previous week when there was very little of a marker data here in the market this is a week is going to be very busy and i think the risk of entire remains high so we will likely see market moving higher the russian market will. not only from the global markets but also from the commodities market and there we have observed quite a lot of strength over the past several weeks and i don't expect that. to and.

he's in concerns of a global growth has made many investors turn against emerging economies and russia is among their apparent beneficiaries capital flowing to the country reach the psychological mark of one of billion dollars in early february and analysts expected to strengthen after the presidential elections in march adding that most russian stocks are currently at the lowest level in three years and this follows last year's impressive capital outflow of over eighty four billion dollars. that's once a food retail now which is among the fastest growing businesses and emerging markets and here in russia left casi sues the former chief of the biggest retail group x five and now the senior vice president at wal-mart who says that he believes this market offers a more potential than any other. it's very traditional russian approach to compare ourselves with the u.s. i think better to compare russian market with countries like china or brazil or

mexico and i think we're generally not too far from them saw let's first to beat this country this country and then thinking about our next levels you know the largest russian or thought companies to this moment have about two five percent market share and that if you. check same figures for some other markets like marcus or western europe or you kate the biggest players usually have twenty thirty percent so the space for rules of companies like x. five money dixie or others the space is enormous so again i am saying that russian market is the probably best in the world market for retail industry. and that's how business looks the sour carries the axe for the headlines buy for last.

resistance is not of politics but a culture. is couldn't test. on its own.

cultures of resistance on the marching. band.

talk about the headlines for you now syria brushes off fresh arab league initiatives targeting the assad regime washington this thought to be lingering up for military action. happens approves draconian new austerity measures as the city explodes with rage what protesters say is a sellout of national sovereignty to foreign interests. and equal opportunities to study work and earn putin outlines his plans for social reform his latest pre-election article. next artie's program where people are venting his guests

tackle the choking austerity been inflicted on the people of greece. well her science technology innovation all the list of elements from around russia we've got the huge earth 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 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

a blind. decline in moment or a decline in the economy is not the right medicine clearly. economic. 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 one cannot be as general to suggest that can bring prosperity clearly in 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 girls 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 condom use 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 our sturdy it 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 what 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 geraghty 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 austerity 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 we're sailing because what do you think about that what is to formulate and where

does our sturdy 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 always on telly and this is going back to what people said about innovation you apply a steady jauntily 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 liking 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

a painfully ok people go here but that's a political decision that's very interesting that's a political decision not necessarily for the common sense 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 one of the ways in which a default can occur well you can do the argentine style will just never pay back and you don't have to do us terribly or you could do it the greeks are doing which is well we'll pay it 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 default 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 do we 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 austerity you know it was stated in the united states is different. 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 the allowed to increase we have to find actually why and how did 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 turn out and say well we allowed 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 i think that if i go 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 problem the problem is that germany and france are not managing the greek economy they're just managing the greek debt and over the last over the last couple of days i haven't heard anything about how we can return the. 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 sink another five percent until the end of this year and someone made the scenario about returning to growth in twenty thirteen which i don't necessarily see happening and the just thing the cation that germany and france is 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 all right if you're an international monetary fund we people if i go to you i mean that's what 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 the 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 the growth start missing 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 do 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 before i you know a great panel before i'd like you before we go to the break here remit paying off the debt let's be clear it's paying banks ok and this is they're getting a primary residence and this is the same in the banks a 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 there won't be enough for greece to default they have to actually exit the euro and get control of the car seeing all right we're going to go to ensure are you going to go to a short break here and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on austerity stay with our team. if you. still. want.

wealthy british science. because. markets weiner. scandal. find out what's really happening to the global economy with max cons are 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. dimitri new york i'd like 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 statement i think that with 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 this 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 vend the euro the euro zone to be in and even keel based on the definition of. the americal believes and president sarkozy made major pain stay with you when you were and i can say with you in new york a very but when countries joined 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 bejo is a 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 where you know the powers that is created the euro zone was germany germany and france in the name.