you this hour the leaders of britain and france that discuss an increase in practical help for syrian rebels which could involve giving them military advice david cameron nicolas sarkozy will hold a summit in paris to talk about what more can be done to aid the free syrian army also sign a major deal which would see the two nations work more closely in civil nuclear technology. armed gunman the from the radical islamist sect boko haram have stormed the nigerian prison freeing one hundred nineteen inmates one guard was killed in the ensuing gun fight off the group youngsters through the prison gate using explosives authorities have recaptured around twenty five of the scape prisoners the sect blamed for killing around three hundred people this year alone as it fights to establish sharia law in nigeria. there secretary general anders rasmussen has vowed to continue putting a victory pressure on a town about to make

a share today of the decade long conflict in afghanistan the u.s. and afghan governments have already begun three way meetings with the taliban in coach peace talks later in the u.s. racing to train three hundred fifty thousand police and soldiers to take over after american troops withdrawing twenty fourteen. well rasmussen that was speaking during a meeting in greece a country still negotiating for a bailout to save its tanking economy here is only does want a greater oversight of the nation's finances before handing over the next one hundred thirty billion euros of bailout cash presuming threat of debt repayments is pushing the government into ever deeper cuts into more public protests that insist trying to find a way to trim spending by another three hundred million euros amid reports that some further you are saying the doubtful that greece can meet its obligations the situation that there are some pain countries do little blood platelets. to stay out

of the single currency. now. adays shift nearly over for forty three year old team leader jimmy carlson lorries keep rolling off the production lines here at scan years main works but one doses weeds know there's a crisis on their way to with on top of it so much but i heard up in profit making health cards in fact scamming or was hit by the eurozone crisis when economic trouble loomed many lawry orders were cancelled the black headlines came we have a crisis in the euro and the you with maybe going down and so on and then our customers get very hesitant but the lorry maker like sweden overall recovered fast from the initial downturn and has so far managed to dogs much of the pain felt further south in two thousand and three swedes shocked other e.u. members by voting against joining the euro it was just one factor which now sees

the country with one of the world's lowest government debts and one of the healthiest looking economies in europe we have most with pathetically changed our problem with the fiscal side so we don't have all those debt problems and budgetary problems that many other countries have but big debates lie ahead the rest of the us still by far sweden's largest trading partner and here as elsewhere everyone is watching the embattled euro as a guide to their vote in a possible future referendum some put it simply mike economist rolf england who campaigned against the euro back in two thousand and three i think the euro will collapse before sweden will join the whereas around eighty percent of swedes say they're glad they're not in the euro the figure is reversed for their politicians most europhiles and argue this crisis isn't the euro's fault it's about debt

if you compare sweden which has been outside of the euro for just over ten years and fiddler which has been a member of the for the same period we have identical you can always development. both politicians and people here seem to think that there will be another referendum on joining the euro sooner or later but what their choice will be assuming there's still a euro left choose is anyone's guess. this is a swedish kronor coin it's become a symbol of that momentous no vote of swedish prosperity versus the chaos of the euro but sweden can't ignore that its economic and political fate is tied in extra to europe and also predicting the future of the krona well flip a coin tom barton r.t. . more billionaires live in moscow than any other city in the world it's no wonder

then that the entertainment a real estate industry goods market is geared up for major spenders in the russian capital this week take a look at the millionaire lifestyle has a pretty. i can honestly say that this is the largest i've seen in my entire life but alone here in russia four hundred thousand square meters this monster of a room costs just end. before taxes roughly around sixteen thousand dollars whether we're talking about world. or simply the filthy rich i think any multi-millionaire would enjoy staying here. yes you can catch moscow at an hour's time but right now the business update.

a lie that a warm welcome to the business program this hour officials are in lisbon to check if portugal deserves the next fifteen billion euro charge of its bailout the bankers at goldman sachs that needs up to fifty billion to see it through the next few years as a situation that it irritates artie's daniel bush will look at the problems facing the next year as those states in the firing line. inspectors arrive with a seventy percent chance portugal will quit the single currency indicate the returns for investors to listen to it unemployment is at record highs moody's downgraded the country's rating to junk status and its recession is getting worse steve you can see the two point seven percent in the last three months of twenty eleven why businessmen outside the eurozone are frightened is fear of contagion chief says greece's default has already happened for investors and we should be

worrying about the real elephant in the room portugal the russian nord stream gas pipeline may not start operating at full capacity on time the dow jones agency quotes quote co-developer regatta saying one of its branches may be delayed by a year due to disputes with several german when they oppose construction saying it's too close to their livelihoods the route gold and yellow aims to pump twenty billion cubic meters of gas in here more than a third of north trains full capacity gas has proposed an alternative route which is now being presented to the residents stream was launched last year to pump russian gas to europe via the baltic sea. we're going to take a look at the markets and see how they're getting are we going to start with the current says the euro is trading a bit lower to the dollar as are the u.s.

economic data added fuel to a rally in the greenback on the ruble is mixed against the main current visit hard against the dollar and just i'm not against the year i. going to take a look at oil which is trading at near the highest level in six weeks because of encouraging signs from the u.s. the biggest consumer of crude of course with claims dropping to the lowest level since two thousand and eight moving on to asia the markets are all benefiting from positive sentiment coming out of the u.s. off the shelves that ended the level not same in almost four years. as as low a jobless figures claims jobless figures crimes lingering concerns about greece and japan because it's also benefiting from a week off one point five percent. the russian markets. this hour as you can see. in the u.s.

the odds yes is one point three percent up the mindsets three quarters of a percent just stunned at the. we're going to take a look at the individual on the mindsets energy stocks are on the rise by stronger crude with oil major roles left percent in the black by not just or swaps it's almost. a rating by the economist magazine schools that as the world's second best stock in terms of return on investment over the past decade i call my cast of us is among them again is this our. best sense. russian business is being hit by western sanctions against iran over its nuclear program the gulf state takes approximately fifteen percent of russia's still exports trade across the caspian sea is being severely impacted because of restrictions imposed by u.s. banks at a coming over from industry research research group plus explains. any

bank that is tied in with the us banking system. cannot cannot take part in trade it cannot open letters of credit it can we all know lots of credit theoretically it can be done for russian or ukrainian banks in fact in the end of december the iranian and russian trade and boris have met there has been talks about facilitating an easing of the system for russian banks to accept iranian lots of credits the fact is it doesn't seem to be working at the moment traders producers are telling us that free hundred thousand tons on the normal month zero terms at the moment. fifty five minutes on that i'll have the full the european markets. all the.

cultures that so much given to each musician are you finding the right on the mark with syria and the smart move fire fighters the west refuse to describe events being played out in syria as a civil war why is there such risk. losing . to.

the by. the book. let's recap our top stories for you. russia says no to regime change in syria votes against what it calls on the ballot stealing a solution that fails to address the dangers. since government forces are reportedly stepping up their assault on rebel fighters across syria. moving on to around the rhetoric israel accuses the islamic state targeting its diplomats to write a nice link or group of marines to explosions and don't call it follows

a similar attacks in india in georgia earlier this week. they said the noise complaint. here is their own leaders are deciding the terms of the next playland package from back research the deadline for its debt repayments moves closer to the right processes and don't you have countries out saw the single currency looks weak and nudging to avoid the worst of it. next the target situation in and around syria is under scrutiny from people about in his guests in ati's debate show cross talk. should. be.

blowing welcome to cross talk i'm curious about syria and the spiral of violence why does the west refuse to describe events being played out in syria as a civil war why is there such resistance to finding a political settlement among the warring factions and will outside intervention eventual tear syria apart. to. get cross-talk the situation unfolding in syria i'm joined by kurt worth miller in washington he's a research fellow at the center for religious freedom at the hudson institute in london we have patrick case he's a journalist and political commentator and in cairo we go to rami gerar he is a political activist and co-founder of activists news association all right gentlemen this is crosstalk that means you can jump in anytime you want patrick i'd like to go to you first in london there seems to be this amazing lack of

recognition that really what's happening in syria is a civil war and i'm looking at western capitals right now but when i think about what's going on there and i see the pictures there are two concepts two words that come to my mind one is militarisation and the other one is lebanese ation and i'm of course i'm referring to the civil war that played out in the in lebanon for such a long time that was so horrific for that small country i mean it is a civil war and we have such a good example of historical example you don't have to look at libya look at lebanon and you have a reasonably good fit. i agree that i think it should be seen in that kind of way as a civil war i also think you know it's a civil war a slightly different story because it is very difficult to establish exactly who the opposition is in syria and exactly how they came here and that is now do you think in terms of the struggle against this are that is one of the problems you have quite a split into this kind of chaotic situation in syria more so than you did in the

the arab spring last year in say egypt or tunisia there's less of a sense of ok here into opposition so i can understand why it's a bit hard to understand to define it in very clear cut but at the same time i think you know the west there were a few sort of see it in these kind of terms and to see it's almost in a very polarized way where you have assad to defect simply now it was you know a couple of years ago seen as a reformer and was actually kind of welcome. you know the west very much saw themselves as being able to work with him now have kind of really polarized a situation and see him as a kind of ogre like figure similar to the way in which he was portrayed who is effectively just trampling on the syrian people and i think that polarized nation won't benefit anyone especially should it mean western intervention into the situation a kurd if i go to you i mean we had we had assad come out saying he wants to have a referendum on the twenty six of twenty seventh of this i'm sorry twenty six of

this month and it was scaf doubt very much by western capitals again i mean want why is there such resistance to at least try and negotiated settlement to this conflict because if there is no settlement the deaths continue people continue to die and you know if you choose a side in a civil war which effectively is what the west has already done you still have more deaths i mean it's the worst of all possible worlds right now i think it is unfair to draw. a real clear parallel between could r.p. of course and bashar assad for one. reason and that is between us there's also a fairly comprehensive regime it's not quite the same person if occasion of the state that khadafi was of course there is of course the significant cult of personality that surrounded the syrian regime long before bashar assad came to power of course. and so when we're talking here about the syrian government not just talking about bashar assad we're also talking about the entire bath the regime

that's backing him up with all of their supporters and a pretty significant state apparatus and that's something that really needs to come into play or we're not just talking about a single individual who pulls all the strings of the state having said that i think it's fairly clear that there is simply too much water under the bridge at this point there have been too many deaths there's been too much bloodshed and a tremendous amount of polarization between the opposition figures. not necessarily in terms of just the leaders but in terms of the people who have been coming out to protest putting their lives on the line and in between them and this state that's been perpetrating these well i mean there's a very good i guess you know if i go to i mean and cairo i mean again i'm very hesitant to make this guy by narry here i mean there are the protesters quote unquote protesters and some are pretty heavily armed now and they're killing a lot of people i mean there are even reports reports because not much is coming

out of syria that we can rely upon of beheadings ok i mean this is there's a radicalization on the protesters so i don't i mean these people are not you know solzhenitsyn with the kalashnikov ok i mean this is getting much more serious that's why i started out the program by calling it a civil war i mean there is there is violence being committed by at least two sides and i would say all sides what do you think about that. i'll definitely answer to that but if i could first go back to patrick saying with what he said that there is one point to keep in mind syria is no exception from the arab spring from any other country that's taking part in the arab spring that these are revolutions and syria is not an exception the only thing that makes it an exception is the excessive use of violence by the syrian regime and the fact that the syrian government has as managed to continue killing its people without anyone stepping in or able to protect the civilians the syrian people have tried themselves the international

community has also tried but failed to do anything and in that case in terms of syria now facing this civil war this is definitely over exaggerated this isn't this isn't almost as far as being claimed but what we're seeing in syria is the government basically placing this propaganda that there is a civil war coming in syria that it's already begun and that there's sectarian strife the only party that actually introduced sectarian strife at the very beginning of the syrian revolution was the syrian government this was the only way that the government could get out of this situation that we're in this mess that they were in where people were going to the streets and simply calling for democracy and for regime change the government had to cover that up the only way they could cover that up is scare the minority. and if i can interject here i mean if you want to put it is water under a bridge ok fine but now all sides are committing acts of violence ok you want to say who started it ok fine ok but any state in the world is going to strike back at

people that have arms ok and i'm not justifying the regime in syria but what i'm saying is that all sides are using violence right now and that's why i'll go back to my keep hammering away at my point of why can't why shouldn't the international community be pushing for negotiations on the ground instead of having saudi arabia and kuwait and all these other countries turkey the united states and who knows what israel's role in all this is right now i mean why should we be focused on the folks on the ground first before this spreads to the entire region. i'm sorry but i wouldn't agree with in fact that there were there was violence being patrolled from both sides us not the case we have one side that it's attacking its own people in peaceful demonstrations and another side which is formed of defected soldiers and maybe some recruited civilians who wish to protect these civilians these are defected soldiers they don't have a hillary or they or they have weapons with a k forty seven is that the max maybe an r.p.g. but not tanks not gunships and if i go to crashing in london now yes we can change

that may change patrick go ahead. well i'll just like to say i don't see what the problem is with the syrian people taking up arms against the star you know i do agree with me that you know in some ways you can see this as a continuation of the arab spring i think there is there's a slight difference in terms of the coherence of the opposition but. assad is cracking down on particular areas in a very kind of brutal way it is difficult for people to get here and debate for example go to a kind of tire square like situation that you saw in egypt but i mean sometimes in these situations as we saw in libya people do need to take up arms against the state and to overthrow it i would defend that i don't think this necessarily can be resolved peacefully and you know attempts to negotiate could also put it on i i could put that struggle for freedom and democracy in syria which is going on you know on the on holds where i think is problematic though is where you have external

forces effectively betraying the syrian people as vulnerable kind of like helpless in the situation and unable to battle against assad for themselves i think you know it's very clear in my mind that the only way in which history can be made here the only way in which a true democracy can be brought about in genuine leadership and coherent sense of ideas for how to take the country forward can really be established is through the syrian people doing this for themselves rather than having western intervention which effectively is trying to deliver democracy to that region it doesn't work like that it hasn't worked actually it's actually been with me every country where that's taken actually. it may be contributing to the violence because if i go back to kurtz in washington you may have elements within syria they're hoping for a western intervention and that's not stopping them from the go sheeting and assad i mean you could look at it from a different point of view if there's going to be an intervention he's going to do as much as he possibly can now to make sure there's nothing to intervene about so i

mean this. prospect of outside intervention makes the situation even worse in the country you know i think one of the one of the difficulties not just in our conversation but in the broader conversation about syria is the definition of what we mean by intervention. and one of my concerns at the moment and i should say fairly fairly clearly i do believe that the i want to say the west but the outside world i think should be involved somehow i think there is some violence going on perhaps on both sides but it's clearly not not a parallel situation you know the free syrian army which is an entirely uncoordinated organization if we can even use that term by no means represents the same kind of power as the syrian state i don't think we can look at those in a completely parallel fashion but at the same time i think it's very clear that the state which has its has a responsibility to people to protect not to oppress has been using

a far greater degree of violence against people some of whom are armed many of whom are not. then has if we can use this term the other side so i do believe that we should intervene but i'm not talking about boots on the ground i'm not saying you know we should all go you know gung ho dropping bombs on the syrian army at the moment i think we can deal much more imaginative in terms of how we talk about intervention. in a way to get justice in terms of libya and i mean libya wasn't supposed to happen but libya happened ok all right gentlemen right we're going to go to a short break ok and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on syria stable. i. mean. i i. i .

any match one slipped to easy. to burn for evermore eternal fire is glimpse into the hopes of the futurists the e.u. we old wants to see the song forever. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture. oh. and if you still. want.

to. play our welcome back to cross talk time you were talking about the war in syria. lebanon. and you just start playing ok i'd like to go back to rami and in cairo i started out the program saying how disappointed i am but i expected that the western powers wouldn't like to call what's going on in in syria's civil war because it has very important political and geopolitical input implications but let's talk about another thing that western media and politicians don't like to talk about it and it's the sectarian strife there i mean this is about you you said in the first part of the program about defectors most of them at least i've been told are sunni what does that tell you. not actually the case of the country is so you would see

a majority of defectors being cinese we've seen the whites we've seen christian defectors that's actually not the case but what you have in syria now is the government basically portraying the sectarian violence and that's sort of provoking both sides what you're seeing is in the army i have to be detailed about this in the army with mobile phones only the allies are allowed to carry those mobile phones and only they are allowed to film themselves basically undertaking the trust cities against civilians we've seen these videos of soldiers beating civilians and then mainly it's not because only the other words are taking part in this crackdown actually every element of the country taking part in the security when the security forces are taking part over the different sectors but this basically points to the viewers that it's a doing this and then when you're in an area like hamas in baba amr and you've been under siege for twelve or so days and without bread water electricity or any source of communication then to frustrate people now i'm not saying that that means that

what you're going to see is sectarian violence again the government is over exaggerating the sectarian violence what we're seeing is in the army. because people are not able to defect they reach a point where they refuse to open fire at civilians and they won't be executed by the regime these people the same soldiers that were executed lifted in funeral processions by the regime claiming that terrorist elements sunni terrorist elements killed them if they were a whites that would probably be the scenario and that would cause a conflict the longer the syrian remain within but it is ok but if you want if you . really do it by mathematics then met then most of the victims are sunni because the regime is not ok at least the leadership is tragic if i go to you the secretary in differences is something that is downplayed a lot in western media but and that helps downplay the role that saudi arabia kuwait another great democracies by the way in the middle east during the arab spring that the role that they're playing there and again it seems to me it's a domino thing it's all about iran it has nothing to do about tomorrow.