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videos for your media project a free media. time. iran says it's been considering putting oil sales to six e.u. countries but wouldn't do so quote at the moment because of the cold snap across europe. russia says it poetic sternal players are encouraging opposition groups to stay out of dialogue with the syrian government and therefore bear a large responsibility for the ongoing violence meanwhile president assad has announced a referendum on a new constitution. and rallies marking a year since the pro-democracy uprising in bahrain protesters face yet another harsh plant down with police using tactics and weapons from the u.k. .

one am in moscow i met très a good to have you with us here on r t our top story iran has reportedly warned to six e.u. nations it may stop supplying them with oil in response to a series of sanctions including an embargo on terrence key export an iranian official added the only reason they're not stopping crude sales immediately is europe's extremely cold current temperatures archy's jake agrees reports. the latest reports here what we hear is the iranian foreign ministry has cooled up these impasses of these six nations concerns and told them that cuts will happen but not right away or they will face a ban on exports to their nations but they'll be given some leeway in that sowing to what they termed humanitarian reasons the cold snap has been sweeping across europe that will go down if implemented preempt somewhat those sanctions imposed by the e.u. back in january and due to be implemented in july six nations in question here well

those reported to be in the really thick of it when it comes this economic crisis we have the netherlands of france also portugal italy spain and greece as well as already been questions raised here because tehran says that he can find other people to buy exports that's the likes of india and china where is the being raised as to whether or not the e.u. can or you place that good and quite cheap supply of oil to those who have been so stricken in recent times greece in particular is in a sticky situation right now failing to guarantee another bailout plan even though they push through further austerity measures just on sunday and this really raises a bit of a concern at the moment that those imposed sanctions on iran back in january by e.u. member states could surely come back to bite them. meanwhile tehran has reiterated its readiness to resume nuclear talks with major powers to discuss the country's

controversial nuclear program israel has stepped up pressure on iran with prime minister benjamin netanyahu saying what he described as tehran's aggression must be stopped he repeated the claims that iran was behind bomb attacks targeting israelis in india georgia and blasts in thailand this week israel says there are links between the incidents displayed iran denying involvement tehran says israel's waging a psychological war that some fear may pave the way for a military action political analyst chris bambery from the international socialist group explains why he thinks israel is acting as it does. i have to take israel's claim that iran is behind the attacks on its diplomats in georgia and india with a pinch of salt firstly it should be said israel has a long record of using assassination as the tool i think it might be better of original to turn around and say in response to those that it's going to stop its assassination policy and with other nations like iran to it is appropriate but i

don't think israel is going to do that because used assassination so often i think what it is rules are trying to do is trying to up the ante and so the americans will do something they aren't capable of taking out iran's nuclear program they don't have the means to do it best they could memorize a hit and run and run attack i think it actually behind the rhetoric about nuclear weapons the reality is what they are worried about is the increase of the increase of iran's influence in the in the region the rain is of constantly said that they're not going to me nuclear weapons international atomic energy inspectors have just been to iran they came came by seems a good visit so they're going back to iran they're getting cooperation you wouldn't know this report in the western media so i think there is a ratcheting up of my opinion is the ratcheting up is not by the iranians it is by the israelis and by the americans and i think there is a lot of hypocrisy about iran's nuclear program. no fan of nuclear energy or indeed nuclear weapons i do one but it was ok for iran to have

a nuclear program in the one nine hundred seventy s. when britain france and america would queuing to sell the shah of iran nuclear technology it was ok then because the shah of iran was one of the guys it's not ok for the iran to have nuclear weapons no and islamic republic and there is more on other kinds of pressure facing iran over its nuclear program on our web site us plans to evict the country provide had short group that could hurt the country's oil sales but in turn have global consequences click on r t dot com for all those details. russia's foreign minister sergey lavrov says foreign nations are intervening in the syrian crisis and spare responsibility for civilian deaths the statement came with reports of violence in the cities of holmes and hamas some of the fiercest in the

eleven months of on arrest. you can always find a compromise but only through carrying out negotiations this is what some from the opposition refused to do being dissuaded by some external players who burned a huge responsibility for the ongoing violence for the deaths of peaceful civilians . meanwhile in syria president bashar al assad has ordered a referendum on a new constitution to be held in eleven days could put an end to the one party rule of the president's bath party which is in shrine in the current constitution artie's marie if a notion of reports from damascus. the date for the people's referendum on the country's new constitution has been announced on wednesday it is expected to be held on the twenty sixth of february in eleven days the syrian government has been working on a draft for this new constitution for quite a while now and it has sad that the most important thing about this new constitution the most important change is that it implies the end of monopoly of

the ruling party here in syria the bath party has been in power in the country for the last fifty years actually since the beginning of the uprising here in syria last march protestors have been calling for democratic reforms and for amendments to the country's key law in the wake of violence that followed in the show demonstrations peaceful demonstrations many opposition leaders have been only demanding president bashar al assad to go and they will not be satisfied with these particular reform with this particular referendum this news it's how has come amidst numerous reports about violence all across syria we've been hearing reports from the city of hama north of the capital damascus from the opposition activists saying that the tanks of assad's army have been deployed in the city and we have also been receiving reports from another troubled area from the city of the

homes where reportedly there have been explosions at the all pipeline activists have been reported four hundred people dead in the last few days since almost all these reports have been coming from one source from the opposition there has been a feeling that another part another side of this conflict in syria has been kind of ignored. since the beginning of the uprising in syria last march the regime of bashar assad has been accused of repression torture and killing but with the bodman of homes. blame has since focused on assad forces attacking civilians and shell in residential areas. the beautiful yard calls himself a member of the opposition and intellectual not one his tresses from a social democratic group originally from holmes 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 and 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 belongs with 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 and b. says when he went to homs he put in his mind that the syrian opposition is very peaceful in the 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 a letter last week an f.s.a.

free syrian army representative at 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 see 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 west and the arab street support them last sunday the arab league vote still for full political and financial support for the opposition to unify its ranks it. similar call from the leader of al qaeda didn't lose limbs to unite efforts to help overthrow bashar al assad recent reports suggest iraqi weapons could tare troops and libyan rebels a 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 and turkey to create these very militants i won't call them terrorist but very dangerous armed groups but the west has its eyes wide open when it comes to the reported death toll to come of the no 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 are destroyed to lead to political objectives. over the number of six of them on six of them but you would be surprised to know that over two poles of it hundreds. this is the. good woman 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 warn that finding the solution to the country's crisis isn't possible without recognizing all its causes regional now t. damascus syria the e.u. is continuing to put pressure on syria's assad to step down confirming new sanctions against the country are on the way political analyst dr omar in a shabby things western powers are sending the wrong signals to the opposition who should be encouraged by the announcement of a referendum on a new syrian constitution. the way forward is to have dialogue and i think in order to have dialogue there must be sacrifices on on on both sides here is a president making. a huge move forward by presenting a draft of the constitution and i think that that should be in his view in many people's view sufficient to convince the other side to sit down on the table.

and to have a serious dialogue. that would save syria the destruction and say this so many people. syrian opposition is calling for reform what is the best way to get that done is it through cutting weapons and shooting at government institutions to get to each other and having a civil war in syria of course not i think all the city and. however many of the groups who are fighting today in cities they actually are not ready for dialogue they have they have working according to western agenda in order to remove that is there is there little problem or foreign interference in sit in affairs last year pro-democracy campaigners in another country bahrain thought they got what they wanted after being promised reforms including among the police twelve months later how activists trying to mark the anniversary of the uprising found the crackdown

was as harsh as before only difference this time was the same tactics and arms the police used were bought from were brought from the west by those supposed to bring democratic change bennett has more from london. tear gas and stun grenades supposedly the work of a reformed police force but one year on since the first anti-government protests will 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 eights 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 that is this is wrong 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 he 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 there are sixty five or 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 witnessed on the ground is not. the front or from what this previously but it's been extended through the toxic gases and use of poisoning. mr john is contributing we should see a positive things of 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's 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 bennett's r.t. london greek political leaders have sent a written commitments to brussels saying they'll stick with agreed austerity measures regardless of the results of the general election set for april but greece still needs to convince the e.u. will make enough cuts to return for a one hundred thirty year old bell out needed to prevent defaulting on its massive debts next month though the greek parliament approved austerity measures sunday a key meeting of eurozone finance minute. it was cancelled as they demanded more assurances charlie mcgrath founder of wide awake news things that brussels is using the ballad as a big stick on atoms. what's at stake isn't debt it isn't the big banks of europe being paid off what's at stake is sovereignty for the five hundred million people on the continent of europe you know greek greece is the first domino once they read it kate a sovereign nation in greece which they are trying. to hand over fist to achieve

over there by neutering their parliament by dictating laws financial loss from brussels once that's achieved in greece you know it is not going to stop there and i think that's what a lot of people don't realize you know even the day that this greek deal was announced moody's came out and downgraded austria france italy malta portugal slovenia slovakia spain and the u.k. they are not going to stop in till they can eradicate representative government government inside of europe and have everything controlled financially out of brussels and if you control the financial the financial aspect of these countries you control these countries. take a look at some other stories making headlines across the globe nato has admitted its recent airstrike in afghanistan killed eight civilians the attack happened a week ago in the village northeast of cabo and has outraged afghan officials this in the wake of the latest u.n. report indicating the number of civilian casualties in the decade long war rose last year compared to two thousand and ten. tragedy in honduras at

least three hundred prisoners killed in a fire that swept through a jail tuesday night they were either burned or suffocated to death some inmates managed to escape by breaking through the roof and jumping from the building an electrical fault is thought to have caused the blaze. in turkey police used rubber bullets and tear gas to break up a group of fifty people tossing molotov cocktails in the streets of the city of qatari they're demanding the release of abdulla founder of the outlawed kurdistan workers' party or p k k who's facing the death penalty turkey at the e.u. and the us we're going to the p.k. k. is a terrorist group to turkish soldiers and sixteen kurdish rebels were killed in the last few days as tensions rise on the anniversary of his capture. up next artie's laura smith speaks with middle east expert terry a lead on the turbulent situation in syria and the implications it could have for the region stay with us.

i'm talking to tara kelley who's a historian and author and writes mainly on subjects to do with the middle east of course we're talking about events in syria tariq ali thanks very much for talking to us now president assad seems to be clinging on to power in syria do you think there's any chance of him stepping down in the near future well it looks on likely as if he'll step. of its own accord i think he has to be pushed out the syrian

people who are of course doing their best in the country. what is more dangerous is the pressure being built outside especially in istanbul and by nato to try and organize an intervention that i think would be disastrous and lead to enormous bloodshed much much worse than what's happened in libya. so i think there be a disaster i think the best way is for pressure to be put on him from without by concretes who are not seen as hostile to syria which include russia china and others. and the pressure should be kept on at home and he should be told in blunt terms that he has to go where his father shed a lot of blood in syria he is now doing the same and that this family's on acceptable in syria needs a nonsectarian national government to prepare a new constitution the arab league's reportedly calling for

a joint arab league un so-called peacekeeping force to be sent into syria president assad has already rejected the idea do you think it's a good idea i don't think it's a good idea to send any so-called peacekeeping forces i mean first we have to say what is the arab league the arab league is essentially amaury bond organization which is brought to life when the west needs it too it is no active role for the last twenty five years in any positive sense in the region but surely the involvement of the arab league which is kind of a local regional group is better than the involvement of the un or nato as exterior organizations well it's fine having observers from them if they do their reporting accurately but foreign troops i mean you know who will be the foreign troops there the arab league said saudis said cut through these sort of big vote crews of democracy in the region i mean that's utterly ridiculous it doesn't make sense at

all i think the pressure has to be kept up externally nonviolent pressure that he has to go and i think the chinese and russians are now in a strong position to be saying we've effectively prevented any foreign intervention in syria but you have to go. and push through. a national government the other people of course who are capable of putting pressure on most of the. hezbollah in lebanon and i think all these forces should now cede. that it is impossible for syria to be governed by this family and this sectarian clique that has ruled it and the sooner they go the better for syria do you see syria as becoming increasingly isolated in the region and what effect will that have on iran in turn do you think well i think they are becoming isolated i think the iranians are such an independent state to me one of the few sovereign

states in the region that they can look after themselves i don't think the fall of us as such will affect iran because it will be in the interests of the syrian government if it is a democratic and representative government to maintain good relations with all these countries i mean you know i i have to say that when you look at what the west did in relation to the our pride seeing some of the crisis in the yemen where killing still go on and what they're doing in syria it just sort of stands out the former yemeni president is having medical treatment from the united states. so this is double standards that operate make one who is suspicious of western motives and you say china and russia are in a very strong negotiating position now however. foreign minister lavrov says visits to syria recently seems to have yielded no results whatsoever well i think that you

know if it carries on like this and that the. family and clan refuse to budge and refuse to relinquish their stranglehold on the country sooner or later something disastrous will happen possibly including some form of foreign intervention and then where will they end do they want to end up like do they want to end up like survive lynched by mobs backed by western troops that is the future that stares them in the face there is no other breach a lot of commentators have been saying about the arab spring in general that. the violence and uncertainty in the aftermath will enable the muslim brotherhood as the only organization that is organized enough to take advantage of it to essentially step into the fray are you worried that that will happen in syria well i don't support them politically and i don't think it will be in the interests of syria to have an islamist government you know moderate or extremist the pattern seems to be

at the moment of saying that the model a moderate islamist government is the best model for the arab world i disagree very strongly but that i don't think it's a good model for turkey either by the way. but the fact is if it's the only power in the land it will and there are elections that will come to power like it has in tunis here like it has in egypt and then one has to deal with it i mean i regard these groups as the slum equivalents of christian democracy socially conservative organizations but perfectly happy to follow the latest economic trends. which dominate western do deals with the united states but you make the muslim brotherhood sound fairly benign really do you think that christian minorities and other minorities have something to fear from that well i mean there is always within moderate islamist parties a current which feeling that they can't really offer people what they want which is

a decent standard of living which is a social safety net to work then divert attention by targeting minorities the brotherhood has done it in relation to the copts in egypt and it's not impossible that they're sort of peers in syria will do the same so that is not a good thing to all but you know we have to wait and see if this is what the majority of the people want then unfortunately it will happen sooner or later tara kelley thank you very much thank. you. culture is the same of jargon but you love her even more so because all we're trying to take your pick moment by one of them i'll be in britain and argentina again sparring over the legal status and future of these islands.