shattered greece last week so in one nine hundred fifty three recall there was a london debt agreement whereby creditors for all of germany's debt agreed to take a fifty percent haircut on german debt you know well this is interesting is a bit of a double standard here the germans got a huge break on the debt back in one nine hundred fifty three other countries rallied to give them a break because they felt that it was everyone's best interest now here we are twenty twelve and germany's in a position to return the favor but they saw. as libya's celebrates the first set of verse or a of the start of its nato backed up rising its national transitional council struggles to take control over the country's volatile situation mr international has recently accused the m.t.c. of failing to protect human rights claiming that thousands of gadhafi supporters

are being held without charge and tortured all the group reports at least a dozen have died in rebel presence in september as a result of mistreatment of course for a bigger say former rebels want to take over power civilians remain armed and the economy has crumbled since the war political scientists talk about a harshly tells r.t. but the country's future looks grim. i see a very grim future in libya i see a civil war in libya i see it's never going to have a good stable. environment there and this is exactly what the western ones once they happen because they want to get control of all the oil all the natural resources there now these days who hold the economy control the world and this is exactly what they want i see no future no good future i hope i'm mistaken but i'm not unfortunately libya's going towards incredible civil war people are going to be

killing each other left and right. well taking a look at what else is making news around the world this hour gunmen have freed nearly two hundred prisoners from a jail in central nigeria prison officials say a large group of men carrying weapons stormed the prison late wednesday details remain scarce but authorities do not believe the attack was the work of the islamist group boko haram who orchestrated a massive jailbreak in two thousand and ten. north korea's military paraded in the nation's capital to mark the birthday of late leader kim jong il they pledged to defend his son and successor kim jong un with their lives and crushed enemy forces if attacked crowds have been making their way to the city's main square to leave flowers next as portrait since kim jong il died of a heart attack two months ago relations with neighboring south korea are at their lowest point in years. of the double hit of infertility and recession is forcing some hopeful parents to get creative and we in the us it costs

as much as one hundred thousand dollars to use a surrogate mother to start a family but get on a plane to india and it could be much cheaper largest british reader about one couple who to just. arrogances in for it all came to india from texas two weeks ago india is a bit of a challenge for someone who used to travelling in the states and in europe. but you figure out your way around the world and they're not here to see elephants and by being coles they also came to meet peter for the first time their new baby boy it was the easiest pregnancy i mean. although peter is genetically their baby susan didn't actually give birth to him. and indeed sarah get who they never met did around ten years ago we decided we would try to have a child and didn't happen naturally pretty much given up hope and we spent

a bunch of money and that's when we realized indian surrogacy was actually something that was reasonable surrogacy is the latest trend in the outsourcing relationship between the west in india since the recession began doctors here say they've seen a demand for their services quadruple and most of that interest is coming from abroad that's because the price tag of sarah to see is a quarter of what it cost in the united states eric and susan found this deli fertility clinic online while they were at home in the u.s. they paid the clinic twenty five thousand dollars which covered everything from the sarah get to the lab work in the united states they would have spent four times that much the sarah got herself received anywhere from six to eight thousand dollars for the job and amount of money that is hard to say no to for many of these women who are poor and on educated. people here is a huge amount of money much more than they could possibly make in a whole year after husband left her seriously seemed the best way to support her

two kids and mother good. at the end of the deed they do would they want and i get the much needed money. but it's this sense of desperation that critics fear make these women vulnerable because women are poor because the odds are. for room you know because they have the challenge said right and for just said why would they have to sell do it and here are people who are exploiting it for eric and susan however the issue isn't so black and white they're happy that their indian sarah get give them a shot at completing their family you know she didn't seem with all upset she seemed like she did something really nice in this far as i'm concerned she did. ending their ten year journey to have a baby in a place they never expected preassure either r.t. new delhi india all the back of the headlines shortly but first the business update with kareena. i.

so welcome to business here in r t thanks for joining me the u.s. is looking to cut iran's economic live blog by removing it from the world's financial clearing system known as swift it will rack up pressure on tehran as the country's leadership reveals new progress on its nuclear program but as our g.'s daniel bushell reports america's action could end up backfiring on its own people. this is a bid to coup iran's economy washington's move to iran from the swift world transaction system would choke its ability to trade internationally swift payments orders the worlds of business or the world of business they used practically every company in the world to exchange financial info the legality of america's move is highly questioned it's unprecedented political interference in the work which is always such issues should be handled on a national level what is clear is barack obama's frustration the sanctions on

working iran hasn't backed down in the nuclear dispute in fact is no one else to fuel production mean more misery for u.s. consumers brant six month over one hundred nineteen dollars a barrel. of swift will again hit not just the price but the recovery of the world's economy. now is a look at the markets now we start with oil prices are mixed here despite u.s. crude inventories falling for the first time in four weeks is trading over one hundred and one dollars per barrel brand at over one hundred one thousand dollars. now to currencies the euro is trading lower to the u.s. dollar on thursday after the talks over a second bailout for greece have been called off and the ruble as value against both the european and u.s. currency is. the european stock markets are down led by bank stocks fell after movies and investor service threatened to downgrade more than one hundred financial

institutions in london heavyweight h.s.b.c. holding lost one point two percent leading a forty point seven percent lower german automakers however point in the opposite direction that i would pour showing that new car registrations in the european union in january declined over seven percent compared to the same period last year . the russian markets have not managed to get into the black today the us is almost two percent down in the mines it's one percent lower this hour let's check. on the index morris all the wise x. energy majors are tracking down beat market sentiment posting moderate losses local is down point six percent banking stocks are under pressure as well as bank is losing over one percent of the sour and beating me is also on the downturn it's january net profit rose sixty percent but that accounting standards looking ahead to the coming trading sessions begin to touch was a from alpha capital tells us what sectors he pavers last. would favor

so the moral of this larger energy distribution company i would favor a gas prong which still looks truly cheap and reaches a predefined in terms of technical picture also. below the truck to. russia's economy will have a dynamic start to the year but is set to lose stream in the second half at least that's the verdict of standard and poor's weighting the agency which says the country's growth will drop to three and a half percent this year among the reasons the central bank slowing credit growth to cut inflation wrists and continued capital. russia's largest lender has finally got the key to access the european market where bank is signing a long awaited deal to purchase austria's falls by getting national since agreeing the acquisition back in september where bank has managed to drive down the final price by eighty million euros to five hundred and five million euros the bank's

head sees no risk in entering the european market despite the current debt crisis the finance used to finance years the greek default has already happened the contras structuring of greek debt is a trial to find a way out of this difficult were no more interested in what's happening in the south of you were to which you will screen italy but were not present in these countries the countries where we are present have clear macroeconomic picture and policy. well that's our business update but as our but don't forget to find lost always on our website i did a complex business thanks for watching. the

official delegation your only phone pulled touch from the dumpster.

video on demand. an omission st now in the palm of your. home. welcome back you're watching r t and here's a recap of all our top stories the violence in syria escalates as a high ranking religious leader is assassinated a damascus reportedly from his pro-government stance well that's a syrian opposition accuses the government of stepping up attacks on rebel held areas of the city of daraa the latest target. athens fulfills the last of the e.u. is be allowed to bounce but brussels postpones is the socialist to release the second rescue package meanwhile many greeks feel that they should well to recover

from harvest already measures which harm their health care system while leaving the military on scale. and fierce of head to confrontation between tell of the tear rot and grow following reports that a raid has arrested over recent thailand bombings were targeting israeli diplomats israel also wants more sanctions against iran as its nuclear program progresses despite terror rather iterated its will of the storage unit six party talks. those are the headlines for you and up next spotlight with do stay with us.

hello again or welcome to spotlight the interview show on our t.v. our knob and crew they will discuss social problems the subject opposed to the russian society by. the march fourth russia will vote for a new person whoever is elected will have to face a number of social issues like low wages than pension income underfunded health care and education housing and other these topics have always been pretty disturbing and the voters expect them to be our top priority for the new president this week prime minister and presidential hopeful graham published another in a series of articles expressing his view on the problems russia is facing and making some proposals to discuss them now with political analyst need three by bitch and. three gentlemen welcome to the show.

of lead in there putin has been outlining his vision of russia's future in this series of articles written for the country's major dailies in the run up to next month's presidential election the latest one in titled building just as a social policy for russia focuses on prime ministers social priorities gordon describes russia as a welfare state and is optimistic about the prospects for all layers of society he plans to raise the pristine workers given them more control over their companies and recreating the work aristocracy also promises to double university professor salaries by two thousand and eighteen and to increase social guarantees to large families he aims to make russian education and math the best in the world in ten. as time according to the article it's not impossible to reduce prices for

comfortable state of the art housing by twenty percent critics of the prime minister's article however say there are a few details about how all this can be achieved. you. know that spotlight has been discussing these articles about let me put since he published the first one nearly a month ago this is the fifth right the fifth i think so so what's a general impression is he is he getting through. do you do like this is a real manifesto of a would be president so what's your impression. general well i think. it was the most detailed program of presidential candidates that we have seen at least not only during this election but also during the last year or so as you remember people said we support putin's plan and this is. what is i remember that i'm going

to talk about social outlet now we see which is yeah i remember at that time wired to the union in a sort of a press conference with me when i was on his way to the presidency at the moment and of age of said that i agree this is a stupid phrase. we just point out there's a hole for russia. and someone someone said even in brezhnev style you could not imagine you know the slogan like brashness where and when we do have to put into play ok so movies well i mean we have a bit more than we had last time we were just going last times a couple of pages and now we have a decent number of articles in the articles of somebody who's running for president and in that respect you're not very different from what you would expect to see from presidential candidates around the world in that they promise things that people want and they avoid issues that people don't want to hear about it be very odd to see a presidential candidate saying you know we're going to have to work more and pay more in taxes and you're going to get less and in return so i think that that he's doing what he ought to be doing the question you asked though is whether he's

getting through and i think that that's something that's very difficult for for anybody running for president of russia to do today if only because over the last number of years really i mean since. since the whole relationship changed between citizens in russia and their state compared to what it used to be in the soviet period in the whole of pollution in in the time since one thousand nine hundred one that people have learned to expect less from their state they have learned to deal with a certain level of disappointment in terms of that the quality of the services they get and the breadth of the services they get along isn't expecting less from this state. for a society. it does and i think that potentially it's a very positive thing but it's a very difficult balance for both the society and for a politician to make sure the different generations are. ok well he mentioned doing much the same thing as all the careless all around the world are doing this

is a big question for me. all the candidates in any country in the elections they always give promises the most of the times these are all the fulfilled promises well but these two do that why does putin. putin being a favorite in the race county county afford to do without these problems well i think that his promises are awarded more modest than the promises so while the candidates i compared for example the promises on the housing issue and i don't quite agree with them in their particle you can see if you alliance were actually acknowledges that housing became less accessible now than in the times of the soviet union he gives figures difficult he gives of course because for one thousand eight hundred nine and for today and this is one of the huge issues for russia russia is now a very average capitalist state if you want and in russia like in many states we

have house us in the apartment buildings which have already been built and they stay empty sometimes for decades just because people cannot sell these apartments now i think i think that's true and i think the housing issue is very interesting and he did say that he would like to see if you'd like to see he promised that housing prices will come down twenty to forty percent amending on the region you know that if you had twenty to forty percent decrease in housing prices and a lot of places that would be an economic catastrophe so it would be a very very it's an important process housing has to become more accessible but it's a very difficult process to manage it's a very complicated economic process has taken on a vested interest and we see very little detail but we wouldn't expect to see that you're going to do that i would address the question to do it do you believe the prime minister or the president of russia does have a mechanism to reduce out the prizes by thirty. well. you know

markets are going to this very difficult and all that but you know everything in issue. be assessed in comparison if you look at the program wolf said again they're all of who says that. we should give loans housing loans to families he her family has vine child should be if the family if i mean it has two children then it should be seventy percent and if three children then this one is just you know forgotten written off and that i cannot even imagine how that would wark you know market economy let's hear a coup out here is what the prime minister says in his article about the end popular topic of raising the retirement age. pensions will certainly continue to grow and i want to see it again i am still against increasing the retirement age however we should take into account the interests of those who plan to continue working upon reaching the retirement age to receive a large salary and soon would like you believe that pensions in order to trees now

should stipulate responsibility without unduly. well there was a lot of talk recently about about increasing the retirement age in russia people people like like finance minister cudi and the i.m.f. represented in russia they throw different arguments in favor of this they have increasing this this age so prime minister putin privilege that is against so does he have the mechanism where will you find the cash there is one area where you have more options i mean russia. is your fiscal balance and budgetary resources are much greater than pretty much anywhere certainly in the western world and so his opportunity to manage that processes is greater he can make that choice and i think that the logic that that works in the holes in other places that if you have increasing lifespans that people living longer that they probably need to work longer doesn't work quite so well statistically demographically in the russian

context and so maybe it's not the right time to think about that and certainly that's an odd. he meant that he can and should take to the people i think the broader question though is that. the point that he raises is not addressing the fundamental concern and i think that if you want to talk about the real social problems that russia has the social problem isn't that there's people who want to work longer people who want to work longer and who are making lots of money can work longer there's nothing that prohibits them from doing that and they're simply not relying on the pensions that the state is giving them state pensions aren't that big to begin with the problem are people who can't afford to go on their pensions people who aren't have not earned much who don't have the resources and who can't live on those pensions and who are forced to go on pensions and keep working under the table or in the unofficial economy to feed themselves and their families and you know i think that politically it was a very a wise thing to do what he did because he's actually addressing the problem of

so-called walking pensions working pitching in russia well i heard this terrible figures i don't know half i'm going to have you evolved yes how hard for people who reach their retirement age have to continue working so basically because they want to. do well they need to order to survive and basically if we read between the lines of what we what we just heard they do is that people who want to keep their jobs will not get their pensions because that was the big issue you have to many countries you have to make a choice you either get your pension or you continue to get your salary and you know it's a tricky issue or so the way to put it he can't you can't have people whole been for the best that they would receive some kind of a larger pension and they will be able to walk longer well. that was already discussed by putin in the in one of his printed previous articles was corruption today he's addressing the social sphere and the kremlin equipment today admits that

the highest rated. corruption in russia is reported it health care education and housing it is to ration so do you think that the putin's proposals in this latest article may somehow help reduce the volume of corruption well i think it's natural that people report corruption in those areas where they have the most contact with bureaucrats and people representing the state and that state funded and that that's the education system or the health care system that's the utility sector and whatnot you have much more if you're average citizen contact with people and i mean the higher echelons of public office so clearly that's an irritant to people i didn't see anything that particularly so other than a knowledge of the problem particularly speaks to how you're going to get the red tape removed and how you going to get that out of people's way and when i was a political analyst with me by be sure and sam green spotlighted will be back shortly after we take

a break so stay with us. the . line in motion would be so much brighter if you knew about sums from funniest

impressions. from stunts on t.v. don't come. welcome back to spotlight nabhan just a reminder that they my guests in the studio are political analysts need to be by beach and sam greenwood discussing the latest article published by prime minister putin who is also as you know the candidate for the presidency in russia a coming presidential election. one of the suggestions that we can find in this recent putin's article is to increase the rule of the employees in running the enterprises what is it possible is it is it working in any developed

economy in the world i mean the work is really running there that their factory and are they the unions enough to take care of the interest of the workers well in theory. in theory point perhaps and you do have employee owned companies around the world united airlines for a while the united states was an employee owned company and you do have different kinds of tripartite arrangements that allow workers to have more of a say you'd still have to have an agile professional management running the company if you wanted to compete both domestically and internationally and so if you get it it's a question of balance it's a very popular statement particularly in in in contrast to some of his opponents like a lot of people who are much more. prominent and pro capital kind of wants people to work longer hours to get more money and shut up. as a company of those intense sadness or actually is a very very is

a very average country because we've heard the same slogans from want of people around the world sort of causey main election slogan was walk more and get more and i think they're watching here he touched up on the very sensitive court a lot of people want to have more say in running the economy mentioned when we had this little chat before before this program you mentioned the smart slow. that putin is taking from others and making them his own factories to the workers was one of the slogans of ladder lead in was that what it was and i would remind you of the perestroika days. one of the biggest achievements of war much of was in the men are just elected to but ultimately it led to a total collapse of a lot of enterprises and it ultimately led to fall of the cause it's very easy when a company is run by thirty thousand people that means that it's not run by anyone so it's very easy for someone with money from our side to take on.