in responding at a press conference to the calls from the arab league gave the weekend for an arab un peacekeeping mission to be deployed in syria now his response to those schools were that it would need further explanation and that also a number of points would need to be guaranteed before that could go ahead importantly that damascus would need to agree with that and also that there would need to be something resembling a ceasefire before any peacekeepers could be deployed in the country. first in order to deploy a peacekeeping mission we needed the agreement of the host secondly there should first be peace which the peacekeeping mission will then help sustain you know the words there should be a kind of cease fire agreement but the trouble is that armed groups fighting with the regime's forces do not listen to anyone and are not controlled by anyone. now it's a mascot mediately rejected days plans for the further peacekeeping mission of the

arab league announcement over the weekend of course the last time the arab league mission was deployed to the country again those huge amounts of back and forth that had to go on before that was agreed to put and of course i go to extremely keen to find some form of resolution to end the violence russia's remaining firm oh it is starts to cool for dialogue now we actually also heard for the first minister of the way he's been here was we've seen the arab league come out over the weekend to say that they're going to back the opposition both financially and politically what he said was that at the moment at this point the arab league snort plotting to back the opposition militarily but of course reports at the moment already that countries like qatar have in fact already been funding the opposition and being them t. said that's obviously causing a lot of concerns again if the weekend we saw al qaeda publicly back the opposition

within the country now that's going to simply add fuel to the fears that the situation in syria right now is really very fertile ground for terrorist groups to afraid to remember the government's been saying that they've been fighting the armed terrorist groups from the very beginning say extremely uncertain there on the ground and still little consensus on earth the steps taking to me forces he said russia's foreign minister meeting today responding to those calls for a further u.n. arab peacekeeping mission in the country artists are further reporting live from the foreign ministry thanks for that update now the u.s. says it's just a matter of time before the syrian government collapses while the pentagon says it's weighing up their radical military action although russia and china are adamant they won't fall out foreign intervention in syria via the u.n. history shows washington may find a way to bypass diplomatic barriers and push its agenda through or it is going to can explain. what's in that mandate having failed to reach

international consensus on syria it's been a complete waste of time washington prepares to act around the un for the time being the administration firmly rules out any form of u.s. military intervention in syria but the pentagon is busy filling out an attack strategy on syria just in case should the president call for action experts say history shows the absence of international consensus would not be an obstacle to washington if it decides to go ahead with intervention the united states sees the u.n. as a tool of convenience of the u.n. is supple and going along with the united states then the united states is fine to have a u.n. sanction for its actions but when the u.n. and the people of the world or the countries of the world resist then the united states says the u.n. is unwilling to do its job and then uses other instruments like nato or other military arrangements they did that in the case of yugoslavia they did that in the case of the iraq war whenever the u.n. doesn't go along the u.s.

then says well to heck with you one will use some other instrument for the exercise of american power last year the u.n. security council authorized nato to protect civilians in libya but the mission resulted in regime change the libyan authorization of force was very specific and it didn't authorize regime change in the countries that partook in their operation clue the united states for exceeded the u.n. mandate and that operation i think that symbolic of the fact that these libya that these u.n. mandates really are meaningful in terms of international law and it's just the reality of it nato countries have flooded libyan rebels with weapons despite a u.n. arms embargo the u.s. government wants the u. one but they want the u.n. to do the u.s. bidding way in the united states uses the united nations in regard to the israeli palestinian question is very emblematic when the united nations passed resolutions which it has done repeatedly demanding that the israelis get out of the west bank and earlier gaza and earlier this summer. the united states didn't enforce those

resolutions they didn't demand that they be enforced when it came to the united nations saying the palestinians have a right to be a recognized state the united states acted as if there was a crime against humanity that the united nations there take up the issue of palestinian rights we can see here a manipulation of the united nations when it does what the united states wants fine but when it stands with the palestinian people which it has repeatedly over and over again then the united states government republican or democrat from going away to condemn the united nations. the u.s. also did not support the resolution on syria put forward by russia which would call for all sides in the conflict to stop the violence and to start a dialogue instead he chose to take sides in a civil war. one might describe the u.s. attitude towards the u.n. as use it if needed go around it if you don't like it but while an approach to the

world body might suit washington it makes for a bad recipe for both the ability i'm going to check on reporting from washington r.t. . well for some more analysis of the syrian crisis we're now joined by james corbett editor of the independent news website the corporate report dot com thanks for being with us the arab league is calling on the u.n. to send peacekeepers to syria what this is cheap and how different might it be from the arab observers mission. well given the the disgrace for conduct of un peacekeepers everywhere from haiti to the ivory coast to the congo and many other countries besides i think the syrian people should certainly hope that peacekeeping mission doesn't come about but but on the note of what this mission would achieve were it to be put together i think russian foreign minister lavrov has made the most pertinent comment saying that that there can't be any a peacekeeping mission until there is some sort of peace to keep i mean what's the point of the peacekeeping mission so-called if there is still violence and

seemingly escalating violence in the region and i think one would have to see it really is as nothing more than a ploy to to involve the united nations in in what is essentially at this point a civil war and and once the situation spun out of control as it probably inevitably would given the peacekeeping mandate of a force that would have no new ability to defend itself in the face of that violence the only sensible option at that point would be to send in foreign troops which i think is the really the endgame in gambit that's going on in the strategy in the first place. i do now says extending support to the syrian opposition there's some irony i mean that the u.s. and the terror group appear to be on the same side really at least it looks that way will this make washington ease up on backing the rebels. i should hardly think so especially since this is once again very much a copycat of the libyan situation that we saw last year with confirmed x. al qaeda fighters being part of the libyan opposition that the us was openly supporting so given the fact that we've seen the us administration's for him from

the bush administration to the obama administration seemingly in lockstep supporting al-qaeda linked to terrorist organizations of various stripes including the l e t and and various other organizations that are now acting in iran and presumably responsible for some of the assassinations that we've seen there i think that that this is really just par for the course at this point although one would certainly hope that some some enterprising u.s. citizen would take the department of homeland security up on there see something say something campaign and actually report to the the u.s. administration for their material support for terrorist organizations which of course as we know from the n.t. aid that was recently signed into law by president obama allows for the indefinite detention of american citizens by the mill u.s. military so perhaps some of the you know u.s. officials who have been materially supporting the terrorist organizations in the syrian opposition can be thrown behind bars for this all the way wouldn't hold my breath awake after a read the resolution was vetoed at the u.n.

security council over concerns of impartiality the friends of syria group or merge i think loading the u.s. and its allies is there a means of bypassing the u.n. and international law which of course we have seen some type of action like that in the past. absolutely that's that's exactly the way that this has to be read and once again the obvious analogue is what happened in libya last year when we saw the formation of the libyan contact group last august which involved basically a number of states that were eager to get their their claws into the new libyan government even before the get off the government fell so back in august of last year we saw a number of twenty six nations meeting in turkey to try to divvy up the big prize of libya's vast resources. ahead of the the actual fall of the gadhafi government so i think this has to be seen as very much a similar ploy trying to to form a sort of coalition of the willing in what i think is really quite imperial hubris

at this point basically the idea that there is some sort of imperial steak to be had here and and that they they can simply divide up the country before it's even falling but but certainly this has to be seen as as yet another way of trying to circumvent the u.n. process which as you know was was really there the brakes were put on it by china and russia last week and i was in china last week actually interviewing a number of scholars and and leading writers in the country and i think there really is a sense in china right now that that there has been a fundamental change in in chinese foreign policy at this point in that china is really learning that it has has a big stake in what's going on there in that they don't want to see another libya happened so i think the u.n. is really being circumvented to a large extent at this point so we see the formation of this new friends of syria group as a way of doing an end run around this u.n. process just briefly i want to focus in on the u.n.

the general assembly is to take up the issue later this monday and is expected to discuss a new draft resolution put forward by saudi arabia it's expected to be very similar to the one which russia and china blocked earlier this month we were just talking about it so what is hoping to be achieved today at the u.n. . well once again i think this is just another attempt to try to religion or minds the entire intervention which which seems more and more likely as time passes and it's just an attempt to try to get some sort of international consensus or not consensus but at least the illusion that that of majority of states go along with this of course the un be having representatives who are not elected by anyone and really represent only the power really did in each of the individual countries and obviously there will be a lot of arm twisting by the united states and the u.k. and other nato countries that are interested in the military intervention in syria to try to press the complaint countries into going along with some sort of general assembly resolution which will then give the veneer of some sort of international

consensus but i think it's it's really just a couple of diplomacy game at this point and really the the end game is some type of military intervention. right james corbet the editor of the independent news website corporate report dot com speaking to us live on the line from japan thanks for your input thank you. well investigative journalists and media specialist also when stanley told r.t. that the syrian opposition is very fragmented and says there's no unity between groups over the means of fighting the regime here's a quick taste of an interview coming your way in about fifteen minutes. although both sides deny differences in. in military intervention essentially in political differences there is different trends in the syrian opposition mainly between the people who support outside intervention and the protestors who don't so you've got groups like the syrian national council which are now open me in favor of

a no fly zone which to me seems ridiculous because you know there isn't any even crane that i know of the syrian regime for all its many crimes there's no claims that this problem to people so no fly zone just seems a political pretext very to me. but buildings on fire shops looted and dozens injured this is how the greek public met a new round of drastic cuts approved by their part of the mint tens of thousands of people protested the deeply unpopular package needed to get a second bailout from international creditors our correspondent jacob greaves is in athens and we hope to be joining him a little later this hour meanwhile germany's finance minister has declared that promises aren't enough anymore saying that greece must now implement the reforms to prove it's not a bottomless pit john laughlin of the institute of democracy and cooperation in paris says there are more radical plans currently being drawn up by the germans.

there is one theory and i lend some credence to it that the germans who are calling the shots on this do indeed want to force greece out of the euro there is a lot of bad feeling towards greece by germans by germany and vice versa and there is a theory that perhaps certain leading german polish politicians want to love the boil and get rid of greece if that is the calculation in other words to force greece to leave the euro if that is the calculation i fear that it's a mistake because the problem in the eurozone is not a greek problem it is a structural problem in the eurozone these debt problems which various countries are suffering from including of course italy but also portugal spain and ireland these debt problems are the inevitable consequence of the way the euro is structured they are the inevitable consequence of it and the measures which are being required of these countries to as it were remedy the situation are only

making things worse so even if greece were to be forced out of the euro my prediction is that the markets would then realize that the eurozone is not impregnable and would turn their attention to other countries as well whose position is very similar in particular portugal. ok let's get the latest on the ground in now there is jacob greaves joining us live now to take up a night of incredible pictures coming out of the greek capital raising violence tell us what is happening in the greek capital right now. based on those pictures as events that took place last night really getting a sense here that the government the greek government is under attack from all sides now you've got the e.u. euro zone international monetary fund really increasing the pressure saying the cuts haven't gone far enough and they have been implemented correctly also we saw taking place last night we have the demonstrators now really amassing in very large numbers up to one hundred thousand people in attendance and there is growing anger

throughout the course. of that evening in the end we saw clashes taking place with police and that resulted in a certain amount of petrol bombs being thrown at police by some anarchists in the crowd also police or tally anything by firing tear gas into the crowd that resulted in total and dozens of injuries we also saw dozens of buildings of flame all of this of course taking place in central athens now there is a lot of discontent as well within harlem and we saw that take place last night a number of m.p.'s forty three from the ruling coalition made up of socialists and conservatives they were against this latest measure of austerity cuts now what we're talking about here really is fifteen thousand job cuts in the public sector also that's going to be accompanied by slashing by twenty percent of the minimum wage and cuts the pensions so really those who are being affected are those who are

probably most exposed by these crisis conditions have to bear in mind this is something that greece is really where the for some time it's a situation they are all too familiar with for about five years now they've been in such crisis conditions and had austerity measures for a number of years impose them by international bodies and there hasn't been that many positive financial indicators since we seem g.d.p. slumping in two thousand and eleven so the main message coming from the demonstration taking place yes they and the protesters at what price are they expected to pay for these bailouts. jacob graves reporting live from athens thanks for that. well arty's cross talk also focuses on greece's financial predicament coming your way later today the hidden cost of the bailout rescue. the exchange is clear in germany you give me the cash to survive given my debt problem and i'll give you my sovereignty but will the public actually comply will they agree to

accept the pain of this austerity and will they agree it is to miss the most important sovereign aspect which is your first school your budget to technocrats in brussels that are not answerable to your population through. the move monitoring the going to mean there's nothing and that's i might's i might be provocative here but that's all going to be that if you feel you've seen it out in a moment that he funds. well after more than two decades the effects of one of the world's worst industrial disaster still linger in bhopal india now that scandal is fixing itself to london's attempt to stage a green a limp big games this summer ivor bennett has more on a controversial new partnership. organizers claim it's the greenest most sustainable a limping games ever but

a poisonous cloud of controversy hangs over london twenty twelve because of links to this the bhopal gas leak nine hundred eighty four one of the worst industrial disasters of all time left a toxic legacy still claiming 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 hundreds 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 ten times the norm in the rest of india for always ten of the time the gas she inhaled left permanent damage and as well

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 dow 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. factory. born with deformities people have more cancers there's growth retardation and boy death there is girls have a problem with their periods or kind of issues that have. have risen from the legit see that has been left behind by this boy in 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 dow is allowed to splash its logo all over that. before the games actually begin but 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 it it was the question was asked to look at the process and there were discussions within the question and i lie self 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. time now for the latest business news here on r.t. with korea. hello and welcome to our business update here in r.t. thanks for joining me there's been a burst of interest and russian share since the beginning of the year returning growth in the u.s. . progress with europe's debt is fueling appetite for risk this has helped reverse the trend in capital flow last year more than eighty billion dollars fled the

country so far this year there's been an outflow sorry an inflow of one billion dollars for more i'm joined by to china from a real a sense asset managers thank you for joining the program so tell me do you think there's been a change in attitude of the interesting to investing in russia in the last couple of months well absolutely we have seen a change of attitude because if you see how the russian market has performed prolife to other markets around the world we have actually outperformed significantly so russia is up nearly twenty percent year to date if you compare that to the u.s. market for example which is up seven and even m.s.c.i. emerging markets with which is down closer to twelve fifteen percent so clearly russia has been very much the hot spot and we continue to see more money flowing into the russian market and still how undervalued russian stocks. it is quiet undervalued in fact if you look. bases russia is the cheapest market in the world.

for russian stock see so not five point two five and a half times and that compares to over six and a half seven times for the markets in general so clearly we have about a forty percent found devaluation of russian equities relative to other markets in the world so we continue to believe that russia will continue to attract interest for that very reason and so far from your point of view how much of a role is politics playing here what changes do you expect after the presidential elections in march for instance. well clearly the presidential election sees something which are people are watching around the world with only less than a week left until we know who is going to be the president and a lot of the uncertainty in the markets or rather the perception of uncertainty seems to be going away which is very much the reason they're trashing equities have done well. the market expects the putting to come back in power we expect

a lot of reform in the market and this is really what is giving us a lot of optimism will continue to reform russia will continue to grow and will continue to outperform the market in the world well there has been some progress in the resolution of the greek debt crisis we see that but will that give a boost to russian equity markets you think absolutely one of the main concerns that we had that the end of last year was there because of the possible default of the greece government we could see significant slowdown in economic growth that is still a concern to some extent with the likelihood that greece defaults on its going away specially at the end of last week and over the weekend that would very much help russian growth because we are going to have a more healthy economic growth in the rest of europe and europe is a major trading partner for russia so it is of crucial importance that the economy

of european countries continues to be healthy ok and just a short what's your target for the r.t.s. adam isaacs by the end of the year. that's a very difficult question we think that these at least another ten fifteen percent possibly twenty percent upside from current levels obviously that very much depends on what happens in the rest of the we still have some uncertainties in the market that we need to follow up and see how they develop through the rest of the. whether we're going to see a slowdown there u.s. numbers have been very positive but again we need to see more every those that the u.s. economy fell out of the woods and we continue to have some uncertainty over economic growth in europe so all of these factors will continue to play a dominant role oh no when markets and the yeah ok thank you chan portfolio manager from our nation's asset managers thank you for joining the program and that's all

the business has for now i'll be back in about fifteen minutes with more financial news here on r.t. banks watching. wealthy british science some. time to. go to.

market why not. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike stronger for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into kaiser report. at four thirty pm moscow time these are the top stories from on. gratz the arab league winding down its observers work in syria and there's a proposed peace keeping mission can be deployed only once the government and opposition forces agree to a cease fire. protests in athens followed by chaos and looting as public outrage escalates after the greek parliament passes a new austerity pill to cure another. olympic values

undermined this summer's games in london risks being marred by a controversial sponsorship deal with a chemical giant linked to one of the world's most worst industrial disaster. now on r t our interview with investigative journalist also when stanley focusing on the turbulent situation in and around syria. today i'm joined by a so winstanley an investigative journalist rajan on the middle east who's latest piece stills into the discrepancies amongst the casualty figures in the syrian crisis thanks for speaking to r.t. now one of the most quoted sources for those casualty figures is the syrian observatory for human rights but you've recently found out information that suggests it can't necessarily always be trusted why is that i think first of all we have to establish who read.