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syria's president announces a vote on a new constitution which would effectively end nearly fifty years of single party rule in the country amid escalating turmoil. and rallies marking one year since the pro-democracy uprising in bahrain protesters face yet another harsh clampdown with police using tactics and weapons from the u.k. . does iran stops oil exports to six european states in retaliation to e.u. sanctions as international rhetoric is ramped up to further family claims of friction with the islamic state. and business we're watching oil prices that jump nearly two dollars a barrel with one hundred nineteen dollars thirty five cents shortly after the iran

announcement for more on that and other. it's five pm here in moscow this is archie coming to you live from nice now with our top story this hour syria's president bashar assad has ordered a referendum on a new constitution to be held in eleven days according to the country's state run news agency it could put an end to the one party rule of the president's baath party in shrines in the current constitution the announcement came amid reported violence in the cities of homes that hamas some of the fiercest in the months long rest are just maria financial reports from syria. it is a cold the national referendum on the country's new constitution has been announced in every day that expected to be how the. syrian government and president musharraf

are heavily confirms a document that had been drafted to end the monopoly of the ruling party people who govern people according to this new club initially there was should yield full marks to just random but we can see it is going to earn more diffuse condom igs records about ballance continuing all across the country and today we've been receiving reports from hama norco the top floor the market about the tank being deployed there come home to about produce a real pipeline their parent piqued by a may fly band from the capital damascus but the military searching residential areas looking for a position members of these reports are hearing hard to verify usually they are coming from one source from the syrian opposition we've got these about while traveling. not far from the. door there. and we've been talking about that.

when the news appeared who the governor of daraa. people have fully formed and the locals intend to. moan moan moan highlandish use of the goodies but again this is very complicated to get the truth to get exactly what is going on on the ground and here is pirates cold outside. since the beginning of the uprising in syria last march the regime of bashar al assad has been accused of refreshen torture and killing but with abad much of homes blame has since focused on our side forces attacking civilians and shell in residential areas. in a beautiful yard called himself a member of the opposition an intellectual not true lucian read one his stresses from a social democratic group originally from homes he blames assad for mistakes which allowed bloodshed at the start but he just defies what the regime is doing in his native city now he is the two i am he is trying to to to.

protect civilians i think that in homs there are many gangs you know there is a title and everyone can claim that he belonged to that this title and no one can ban him the danger posed by the armed forces was seen in the killing of a french journalist last month bill says when he went to homs he put in his mind that the syrian opposition is very peaceful in the g.m. is trying to frame them so he he was like a pioneer in the call and he was killed by the some gang attacks on government targets have become increasingly bloody themselves with twenty eight people killed and scores injured on an attack on a military base in aleppo last week and f.s.a. free syrian army representative at the mit its responsibility before the organization later denied it blaming the government forces a claim ridiculed by regime. insurgents and terrorists have committed this attack

only an insane person could say that the government is killing its officials and officers and destroying its own administrative buildings these armed terror groups were created to commit these crimes and they have committed them in the past and will continue to do so if the word. stand there support them last sunday the arab league for food political and financial support for the opposition to unify its ranks it is similar call from the leader of al qaida muslims to unite efforts to help overthrow bashar al assad recent reports suggest iraqi weapons qatari troops and libyan rebels are role in syria on the opposition side this makes for a volatile and highly dangerous makes. many western powers interested in fomenting unrest and syria and so they'll turn a blind eye to extreme weapons coming in through borders like lebanon in turkey to

create the very militants i won't call them terrorists but very dangerous armed groups but the west has its eyes wide open when it comes to the reported death toll to come only know un figure of more than five thousand employees civilians only but that's bigger leaves out any mention of pro-government forces killed in the conflict some say the numbers that is stored to meet a political objectives. our number. six thousand adults expose them but you would be surprised to know that over two poles of it hundreds of. this is. good the common to foreign pressure has focused on the assad regime but the syrian government and its international supporters say there's been a total failure talk knowledge of violence from opposition forces which has been a key factor in the country's present turmoil they warned that find it a solution to the country's crisis isn't possible without recognizing all its

causes written off now t. damascus syria. well professor mark almond from the international relations department at the university of bill can in turkey says the announcement of a referendum on the new constitution poses a major challenge for the syrian opposition. fuera as a year ago the opposition as it began was demanding political reforms now the chief spokesman for the syrian opposition abroad and as far as we can tell the various rebel armed groups say nothing short of the fall of assad even his execution is acceptable so it's a challenge to see how the syrian government will be able to stage are afraid of that will have legitimacy in the eyes the opposition on the other hand if all the opposition if there's a large turnout of voters that could well be damaging to the claim to really represent the syrian people. in many ways a democratic election is the ideal solution to political conflicts but now. both

sides have people in fear the consequences of losing and the opposition itself can't really risk. losing face by now backing down and taking part in a way to procedures. the u.n. general assembly will vote on thursday on a new syria resolution condemning the government for violence in the country the document was drawn up by saudi arabia and catherine is supported by a number of western powers as the times correspondent payouts cobar says unlike libya syria is unlikely to fall under western influence even through forceful measures. well this takes in syria so much higher compared to libya because this is a direct effect a direct clash between the u.s. and nato on one side and russia and china on the one you know on the other side much more than it was in libya in libya russia and china and even that the other brics and germany as well they said ok maybe this is not the red line yet let's

give them the benefit of the doubt i mean the french and the brits and the americans the country was destroy syria you cannot do that because first of all they're going to have to fight the real army even if they're not very competent but they are battle hardened there's been two wars in the middle east the syrian army it's a smaller country there's more population you cannot simply landings asian is out of the question because the it would go all over the place the repercussions to turkey to jordan to iraq to saudi arabia so nato strand is to foment civil war and that's is like it was as actually what they were doing well last year pro-democracy protesters in another arab country by a crane they got what they wanted after being promised reforms including those of police but twelve months later activists trying to mark an anniversary of the uprising found the clampdown was as harsh as before only difference this time some tactics and the arms and arms the police used were brought in from the west by

those who are supposed to bring democratic change parties ammar bennett has more. tear gas and stun grenades supposedly the work of a reformed police force but one year on since the first anti-government protests were crushed in bahrain it seems not much has changed the only difference now the crackdowns been planned by one of britain's former top cops john the ates used to be assistant commissioner of london's metropolitan police he now works for bahrain's monarchy which says he's there to oversee police reforms the police have borrowed or behaving despicably their latest trick is to throw cancer tear gas into homes of people they don't like shut the doors and people have died choking to death tear gas or use out of doors and i think for any british police officer or overstimulate retired to be associated in any way with it is its role yes resigned

from scotland yard last year in early fix him of the phone hacking scandal he popped up in bahrain in december as part of the regime's p.r. campaign to clean up its image a campaign pushed hard it seems by yeats himself he recently told the daily telegraph his new charges had a well rehearsed plan for the anniversary of the uprising adding the concept of reasonable reaction to provocation has been reinforced. as for the uprising itself yates said this isn't organized protests it's just vandalism rioting on the streets claims hotly disputed by london's bahraini community i mean you get thousands and thousands of people protesting demanding their rights and you call that vandalism. you seem to forget that this is over sixty five people actually died in britain from police brutality activists in bahrain insist their protest was peaceful their aim to reach the iconic pole roundabout in the capital manama they say they were

met by tanks toxic gas and rubber bullets what we witness on the ground as not. the front or from. previously but that's been extended through the toxic gases and use of poisoning of. mr john contributing we should see a positive things at the ground what we are seeing today is nothing acceptable it may not just be british tactics bahrain's easing but weapons to government figures show the u.k. sold over one million pounds worth of rifles and artillery equipment to bahrain from july to september last year long after blood was spilled that despite insisting all licenses had been revoked as for yates his contract runs until april by which time he hopes to put in place concrete reforms on this evidence that seems a long way off the bennett r.t.

london bahrain is not the only example of the west selective approach to dictatorships and pro-democracy protests says british pakistani military historian and journalist eric ali it's full interview is coming up on r.t. next hour here's a bit of what he had to say. when you look at what the west did in relation to the seeing some of the crisis in the yemen where killing still go the former yemeni president has made it big states. so the double standards that operate make. western. people pushing for the intervention in syria saudi arabia. centrally they would like syrian version of the muslim brotherhood to run but concrete then the united states will do deals with them as it has done in the past.

tehran has cut oil supplies to six countries in response to a series of sanctions which include an embargo on crude exports from iran the ban was not supposed to come into full of facts until summer but the islamic republic has repeatedly threatened to bring an immediate halt among the countries hit by iran's response or france and the netherlands as well the debt stricken greece italy spain and portugal this fall is renewed and tyranny and rhetoric coming from israel with prime minister benjamin netanyahu saying tehran's aggression must be stopped he repeated his claims that iran was behind recent bombings in india georgia and thailand something the islamic state to now eyes well tehran in turn says israel is waging a psychological war that many fear might pave the way for military action but expert on mideast affairs the research says iran's response to oil sanctions should be regarded as a warning against launching

a strike. but i think here iran is trying to send a message that it cannot be you cannot deal with iran in such oyo iran has its own weapons while the west for example believes it has weapons and ammunition represented by sanctions iran is also an important country which can also respond in the appropriate men are. it is also a warning of that if military action is taken if military action is taken this would have only be small comparing to how iran could react in that case some i think it's a small warning that if you. take action now economic action against us this is what we can do imagine what action we could take if you go ahead and use the military card against us so i think it's a warning to the west to keep israel also tied down and to prevent his role from going ahead with the unilateral mean you know actual military attack trying to throw the west you'd better keep his role intact otherwise you might be witnessing the very difficult period in the car in the future in case of military attack is

will is launched. and amid mounting economic problems a few politicians have been seeking financial help in beijing but china only gave promises of support stopping short of outlining concrete steps the uncertainty comes as greece again felt to meet conditions imposed by the e.u. which led to the cancellation of a key meeting between eurozone finance ministers jacob graves reports from athens. it's showing just how far reaching this crisis in greece nor so the euro zone now it in terms of achievement for very least so you had quite a high ranking delegation heading there it was headed up by the presence of the european commission and president of the european council as well so it was a manual process herman van rompuy both of them despite that high ranking delegation didn't get any more guarantees apart from good and positive words by chinese counterparts so no financial interactions nothing guaranteed in terms of financial stimulus is really what they want the reason they're in china is because

china has the money they need right now three point two trillion dollars reserve currency fund that could help stabilize the markets here understand why the chinese are somewhat wary of this investment because it cannot make indicators are only really worsening also that to food at the moment which is default greek default and exit from the euro zone what's being talked about increasingly by greek politicians the public also avoid those eurozone leaders and that can't be interpreted as anything else but a real slap in the face for the greek government now they have passed another round of very unpopular austerity measures you can hope to return their begetting guarantees today that another much needed bailed out that is required to repay their march debt they have been sticking their neck out alone on this issue because it's one that's very unpopular the greek population is alienation which result is a little clash with police violence and injuries also disruption to the capital for

the protest itself wasn't just restricted to the public we saw in parliament politicians well forty three the ruling coalition choosing to vote no to further their t. measure is this something now that really isn't that popular politicians all those . who do get the impression we speak to greeks here in the capsule a growing sense of resentment of how they're being treated what they'll be made to do by the euro zone we've heard the head of public order here coming out today m.p. and saying that what europe is doing them over they're not really acting very responsibly. well over on our website r t dot com we're asking what's ahead for the eurozone and not much optimism from voters so far as half of you think the euro is doomed to failure thirty seven percent say greece will spark a chain reaction of the falls about ten think germany will save the crippled eurozone and the minorities see austerity measures as

a way out what's your economic forecast for greece log on to r t dot com and have your say. in america china's vice president wasn't treated to the warmest of welcomes from u.s. officials vice president joe biden voiced a whole list of disappointments from beijing's economic policies through its stance on syria criticism was also level that tied over its copyright and forstmann and human rights record apart from the brief exchanges that day was largely ceremonial as american leaders sized up paying the man widely tipped to the beijing over the next decade parties christine friends our ports i should say reports now on the rocky relationship between the two economic giants. he loves me loves me that age old question is one china at least has every right to ask regarding its relationship with the united states just in the last three years china has been

whined to dine. praised and envied for its ability to do whatever it wants right now in china the government can disconnect parts of routes that are not in the case of war we need to have the chinese p.z. row capital gains tax folks in congress are also going to get a chance to decide later. in the month whether our construction workers should sit around doing nothing while china builds the best railroads the best schools the best airports. in the world but it turns out those chocolate covered compliments seem to come just as frequently as those cold hearted criticisms and it's not just the president himself those hoping to take his job also tend to flip flop these guys around for us and. look for ways to. to work to harness china doesn't want to various they want to see a succeeded thrive so we can buy more chinese products ivan eland senior fellow at the independent institute says the paradox transcends the rhetoric we borrow

a lot of money from china too so it's quite a curious thing that we're really borrowing money to pay for defending other countries from china right i mean that's what really doing in life and love there appears to be a fine line between resentment and respect i want to be china i want to go to war with china and make america the most attractive place in the world to do business if you look at china they're in a very different such as they say for their own retirement security they don't have the f.t.c. they don't have the modern welfare state and china's growing it's that growth and the sharing is caring relationship that has bound these countries in this holy union this trade and economic interdependence with china is is really a defining factor and perhaps like most relationships there's nothing simple about the one between the u.s. and china there are disagreements about who gets to lead when how to spend the money and how to raise the children but the fact is this relationship is one that's

going to be around for generations to come in washington christine prison are taking. a look now at some other headlines making. other stories i should say making headlines around the world first nato has admitted its recent airstrike in afghanistan killed eight civilians the attack happened over a week ago in the village in a village northeast of kabul and has outraged afghan officials it comes in the wake of the latest. u.n. report indicating that the number of civilian casualties in the decade long war rose last year compared to twenty ten. villagers in romania have had to be rescued by emergency services after heavy snowfall trapped them inside their homes the country's winter death toll has now reached seventy nine with authorities using helicopters and army trucks to deliver food and medicine since the end of january hundreds have died across eastern europe and tens of thousands have been housebound

by record snow levels with moldova and albania also badly affected. business is next year an artsy with kareena stay with us. her welcome to business here in r t we go straight to our top story this hour all have hit a six month high following that an elvis month in the iranian media that the country was cutting exports to six european countries iran's state run press t.v. says it's a response to the e.u. sanctions over the country's nuclear program the move applies to spain italy france greece portugal and netherlands earlier the european union approved an embargo against iranian oil imports starting from the first of july however it intended existing contracts be complete it. meanwhile crude prices already has worries over supply dominated concern about weak economic growth light sweet is

currently trading near one hundred two dollars a barrel while brant is hovering between one hundred in one thousand one hundred twenty dollars. the euro is gaining a bit against the dollar after seeing some losses on tuesday and the ruble is high against both the european and the u.s. currencies following gains on the russian market now let's cross over to europe that is trading higher at this hour britain's footsie move into positive territory lifted by solid gains for banks that's up to the governor of china's central bank expressed confidence and europe's recovery. and here's russia where the markets are also lifted by a higher prices of oil both the all tests and adding over a percent this hour let's check on the index movers all the my xix most of the blue chips are high and oil majors are on the rise of course supported by stronger crude would look oil up almost one percent as burbank is in the black as it expects to finalize

a deal to buy east european bank international later in the day bucking the trend though is trying to make a come on that's after an unexpected thirteen percent jump on tuesday. how the latest short term drops of russian gas supply to europe spurred discussions on how to secure consumers from possible cuts in the future. export branch alexander medvedev says that one of the way sorry one of the ways is to increase storage capacity in the region. choose a key. for security to support for extreme situations where you can work to do so because that's where we're repros a program for the. person to. experience . between two hundred to three hundred million euros for a few years to cicutto. stanwood gas of the destiny of russia second subsidy hassling to europe will be decided this autumn the country's gas monopoly gas prong

says it will confer a final investment decision on south stream in the vendor the pipeline will deliver gas to europe bypassing transit countries such as ukraine and it is currently expected to be completed in two thousand and fifteen. moscow to restore mask or production in the city capitals authorities say they are negotiating with at least and a number of korean carmakers to set up production at the plant of truck makers even city hall plans to turn the facility which used to produce armored cars for soviet leaders into innovative production platforms. the world's largest retailer wal-mart may buy russian hypermarket chain for two billion dollars a newspaper in st petersburg cites wal-mart's top manager the saying that the company may strike a deal in two weeks however the head of wal-mart in russia says no talks are being held over all the company has recently said it could reenter the russian market

within two years x. five the current owner of qatar sale has reportedly been considering selling the chains seventy seven stores due to weak sales. one finally if you fancy a promotion or a pay rise then you might be better off working for a russian company but if stability and good benefits are more of a priority than a multinational company could be a better choice according to a poll by staffing agency russia the pluses of working for a russian company include more responsibility faster career growth better pay but the disadvantages include being paid off the books lack of benefits a weak corporate culture. that's it for this hour but don't go away we have headline news coming up for you right after the.