it's like a i don't know whether you call it a death blow or certainly yet another domino that's. disrupting and impacting negative we do lives of average greek people and it goes does anybody care about that other than the greek people it doesn't seem to be registering you know at the higher circles of power and wealth in the world right it's a snuff film the folks in the i.m.f. the c b the troika and in berlin they get off on watching this for the whole country die speaking of go back to energy here for a second it's not just we know that gasoline consumption is tanking also energy across the board is is dropping off in terms of demand not tell us about gasoline and other energy consumption data in america and what this is telling us well if you track what master card sales the gas stations those sales have been declining for forty seven weeks straight. and in terms of gasoline consumption it's

been it's like kind of fell off a cliff in the last few months and energy consumption has been dropping since you know the housing bubble popped in two thousand and seven so the who energy complex is showing you know unprecedented declines in the u.s. and yet we're being told by the standard you financial pundits and you know financial media and our political class that the economy's growing and we're adding jobs and everything's great and it's all like well wait a minute those two things i can both cannot be true because in an expanding economy people use more energy i mean that's that's common sense and it's the data proves it and the contract in your car or me people use less energy so somebody is lying and i don't think it's the energy statistics well we were talking earlier about the role of the rise of the the spy agencies in america living particularly in the

washington area they can walk to work they don't need to drive they can get their instructions on how to spy on people illegally they can go to a neighbor's house and spawn each other they can concoct new stuff film scenarios for countries around the world so they don't need a car there it's energy independent there are so tightly clustered into a cluster or a nest of spying and larceny which is washington now how much it looks like there really are banging the drum for war with iran. is it is that pretty much that the motivation there is again to secure energy supply even though the energy consumption is falling off they still want to can control supplies to spawn the iranian war drums i wonder also if it's just to just to keep prices at one hundred bucks a barrel so everybody in that energy complex and the saudis and everybody's benefiting from it and. because the world. used to be awash in oil in terms of like

the storage capacity serve our full and who with the u.s. dropping from twenty one million barrels a day to eighteen million barrels a day and other nations showing similar declines i mean those are significant declines in demand and so we'll shouldn't be a hundred dollars a barrel and so you wonder if this constant like the political tension is in practice the way to make sure that the profit margin say stay immense you know for everybody involved in the petroleum complex now as a countervailing force and all that's in the economy in the u.s. . this sudden emergence of pop if you well and social networking stocks on nasdaq. facebook's about to go public apple computer new all time high worth five hundred billion dollars now this is i think where a lot of people point to and they say look look at this this is well who we are

this is a this is the growth story where where do they get that wrong to get it right in their revenue model facebook and zynga and to social media which is basically advertising in other words facebook is worth because it's based on three billion in basically advert revenues. and so is that a model that is related or similar to intel which pulls in you know twenty five billion in revenues making real things are apple with revenues fifty billion plus based on making real things in china so i think there's a total miscalculation on i mean how much revenue can be generated from adverts you know is good advertising is a small part of the global economy and so yeah it's a visible part but is that a revenue model that's going to construct trillions of dollars of value i don't think so apple of course does this man for many facts are products. now they've

come under fire recently for the labor conditions in their chinese plans and if you saw the new york times story but they're talking about how steve jobs the late steve jobs when he was putting the i phone together he was saying you just can't build something like that the united states because you need you don't have in china they can put together five thousand workers overnight practically and he says those jobs are never coming back so is this basically even though of apple's got one hundred more than one hundred billion dollars in cash and if they made the phones in the united states it would add something like a hundred bucks per one thousand dollars phone it isn't can they really get away with that justifiably that they're sitting on one hundred billion in cash they don't employ anybody united states on the manufacturing side and they're trying to sell us this idea that you know intellectual property which is coming under fire itself from all the anti people sup

a crowd is somehow going to sustain the economy going forward do you see that i think we're what we're really seeing and other people have commented on the same thing is the hollowing out the u.s. economy and the replacement of actually producing goods and services with financialization so and the propaganda that this is a wonderful thing a lot of people did drink the kool-aid because they saw their house rising by one hundred grand a year and they took out fifty grand in a you know home equity line of credit and they were living the high right fender and everyone said it was going to you know keep going forever so and that's kind of a metaphor for the whole u.s. economy good that the big money is made in financial wising things and just that the basis of a strong economy when you when you no longer make anything and there's no incentives to make anything and i think that's where steve jobs was making a point that he he failed to make to carry through to the next step was why are its

why are the incentives to ship the. absolute receives why are there so few incentives to create anything and produce anything anymore in the states yet now speaking of jobs thirty six billion. dollars in new airport security fees. for the these to basically tollbooths now what is going on here because the entire economy is becoming riddled with the is shakedowns. is that sustainable that's a that's a brilliant term for it because if you you add in like what i call the junk fees you know like now you've got a parking ticket that used to be twenty bucks now it's sixty five dollars so yeah the shakedown mentality. is is it's rampant and i know one hundred people i mean i just saw statistic that u.s. airlines are flying the least number of flights since two thousand and one and you wonder gee is there a connection between people deciding they don't want to play anymore and you know

they're going to shake down yeah i notice also that the report just came out that the number of people americans who are renouncing their u.s. citizenship and moving to different countries because of the political oppression in the united states has never been higher says they started keeping records i mean would it make sense let's say for a country like iceland who got totally screwed by the global banking system to open up to economic citizenship for twenty or thirty thousand dollars anyone can be a citizen of iceland you know get the vote but you do get to have the that passport in place to there turn around and renounce the present state when it doesn't that good economic sense is not a good business model doubt you know that marketing strategy make it open offices in l.a. new york shanghai and beijing because you know china is not as stable as everybody thinks and people are buying houses in vancouver british columbia you know to establish themselves so yeah you can get

a very nice chunk of that market yet why can't citizenships trade on an exchange like everything else if they're so keen on financial lies in every little fricken part of our lives why can't i buy some my own citizenship and go wherever the country is that's offering me a nice mix of civil rights and entitlements so-called program i don't have to be stuck in a frickin police state what these guys spying on me twenty four seventh's so that somebody in hollywood can get closer to scarlett johansson. i think it's a quick. and he could probably get decent form you get like a three percent discount or ten percent discount this month on your icelandic citizenship and then part of the do as you said would be that we guarantee we're not going to spy on you and there is there has to be some guarantee of civil liberties in the deal well run time trials us with thanks so much for being on the kaiser report thank you max george enjoyed it very much as always and that's how to do it for this edition of the kaiser report with me max kaiser and stacey everett

our thank my guests charles who smith trust i mean email please decide to report it r t t v dot ru until next time x. guys are saying bye i'll.

all roads lead to tehran pressure grows on the regime in syria with fears that if it falls the nation's key ally iran could be left stranded and propelled into action. giving a voice to libya's russian minority the baltic state has cast a vote on whether the language spoken by a third of its population should official status. and the idea of euro unity hold strong despite the region's crumbling finances and schools are accused of brainwashing children to believe the project is infallible the top stories this hour.

international news and common live from moscow this is. with crisis looked at damascus feeling the squeeze from within the country and abroad it's crucial an eye in the region is also suffering the strain experts warn that the collapse of the syrian regime would be a devastating blow to iran making tehran extremely isolated and compelled to act we'll have live analysis on the situation in syria in a moment but first. iran's military is put through its paces but how long will this carry on being a drill as the conflict in syria gets bloodier by the day western powers range against president assad ally iran the strategic position looks increasingly shaky which some suggest is no coincidence there is

a proxy conflict between israel and its western allies and iran which basically only has one ally in the region which is the syrian republic so if you can get syria away from iran either through a diplomatic deal which they're trying for many years all through regime change which seems to be the direction of travel now that would definitely weaken iran at all roads in the middle east right now do seem to lead back to tehran experts are calling the last thing deployed and co can bring down throw radian asked and replace it with opposition because it already said they did talk to nancy terror on foreign policy for life i think we're iran's most powerful ally since the iran iraq war iran and syria have developed all sorts of ties cultural and economic included but crucially iran uses syria as a conduit for support for hezbollah in lebanon and how mass in the palestinian authority both declared foreign terrorist organizations by the u.s.

state department take that away and iran's influence in the region could waive all cornered iran could bite perhaps accelerating the nuclear program prospects are easing its. interference perceived interference in other countries in the region press bahrain probs lebanon perhaps palestinian territories. and that will be the way that iran will react so you can make a case for suggestion that the removal of assad will make iran even more protective or even more dangerous it's a knife edge situation and one which grows malls. macarius is events in syria worse than the us even says israel could attack iran in a matter of months but the possibility of a conflict between major western powers and iran becoming a conflict between the world's major powers is on the horizon storm clouds are massing over the region reports of emerge that the qatari and saudis are already

funding arming and covertly operating with the syrian opposition iran looks increasingly isolated with a hostile israel perilously close norris r.t. . from on the situation in syria we cannot talk to jason did she senator dot com joining us live from michigan with moscow and beijing trying to mediate the conflict in syria according both sides for dialogue nato and arab states have now established the friends of syria group supporting opposition how constructive is it that we're getting two different approaches here. i don't think it's very constructive at all but i also don't think it's particularly surprising it seems like a lot of nations particularly the g.c.c. member nations saudi arabia qatar united arab emirates have been looking for an excuse to cut assad out of the picture in the arab league and particularly now are

also hoping that they can use this as an opportunity to possibly replace him with a more friendly regime more friendly regime many concern with the presence of al qaeda and other extremist fundamentalists operating there in syria now going to see that the void could well be filled by the likes of them is that a fair point but it definitely is a fair point and again i don't think it's particularly surprising all these other nations are trying to secure the opposition to their interests and certainly al qaeda could be expected to do the exact same thing and. we don't really know who's going to come out on top in this sort of a fight for the control of the opposition but it seems pretty clear that the. pro-democracy forces in syria the original protesters probably will not be a major part of the picture and in a future government if assad does fall in the those states have called for the creation of

a humanitarian corridor in syria similar to us by what we heard about in libya with that no fly zone some are saying that could open the door to official foreign intervention but what we've just been talking about that's already happening now isn't it but if there is official intervention why along with many of those let's go i'm beijing a concerned about the consequences why is it bad thing to have foreign intervention now when so many civilians seem to be done. well much much as we saw in libya foreign intervention is not a cure all if if anything it complicates matters and creates new power bases where there were none before we saw in libya of course the national transitional council and some of the militias that nato was backing and it up going on extremely bloody retaliatory rampages in the wake of the fall of the gadhafi regime large numbers of people killed and in some cases entire towns depopulated. nominally because they were seen as pro get off. the us conservative foreign policy experts

have been calling on president obama to directly intervene. and help the syrian opposition and take a leading role in resolving the conflict is it therefore true to say that washington is actually taking a back seat over all this or is it more involved than we think but i'd like to think they're taking a back seat but history suggests that they're there much more involved and then they're willing to let on in public and we've seen a lot of reports of them. trying to covertly back rebel forces. but is there real appetite there jason for america the u.s. to get involved with this i mean some might say that in fact russia and china by vetoing the lightning to the u.n. resolution actually did the u.s. a bit of a favor whereby they would be forced into taking real proactive action. well it's certainly there's no appetite among the american public but i don't think that

really matters for the. political leadership right now they they see an opportunity to. start a war that might conceivably be played to their advantage and no matter how many negative consequences that were may bring that there's always this there seems to be an endless appetite for starting wars like this and i think both the obama administration and republicans in congress have have a strong interest in starting a war no matter how opposed it would be by the public and that strong interest perhaps could be referring to wider implications here and maybe iran being involved now. well certainly and we've heard time and again that both from both parties calls for attacking iran threats saying that such an attack might be in the offing. but. of course all of this is that iran nuclear program is entirely civilian and there really is no need

to start a war with iran over this over this nuclear program what about the situation within syria itself is there still a chance for any diplomatic solution to the crisis which of course china and russia really want to see those negotiations taking place. well there's always a chance for for a resolution that the assad regime could reform tomorrow and. of course no matter what they do there are going to be calls from certain powers particularly i would i would guess the u.s. and france and the g.c.c. nations for intervention and saying that any reform is insufficient but i think if a sincere level of reform was was adopted that those calls would pretty much fall on deaf ears inside syria itself but that's what is already promised to hold a referendum on the constitution and future elections what later next week on the

twenty sixth of february at the opposition is saying they do not want to take part in that referendum why is the opposition so opposed to any chances of the people of syria being all these questions. well there are a lot of different voices in the opposition and i think the ones we're hearing that are criticizing this are the ones the same ones that are. seeing an opportunity to be installed in power as a replacement to assad possibly by a nato intervention militarily and certainly they don't want to see this resolved because a resolution means that. they're no longer necessary so just very briefly assad could possibly survive this if he did would that be a good thing from your point of view just briefly very briefly well i don't think it's necessarily a good or a bad thing from from my point of view. as certainly i would like to see the violence quiet down and that could happen any number of ways i think what i definitely don't want to see is nato intervention because i think as in libya would

be an absolute disaster. jason thanks for your thoughts good to talk to you that live image jason it's that i want to thank you. let fia has held a referendum on whether russian should become the country's second official language authorities claim that threatens national integrity despite russians making up a third of the population and as it makes you the ship he reports this vote is just the first step to and the decades long discrimination. valente from a lot of us russian minority says his country's government has gone too far having lived in lot of all his life it was only recently that he managed to exchange a temporary residence permit to a full passport but now this father of three faces another hurdle for his family this time and that his children and their education was a pass through legislation that school schools sixty percent of the

lessons must be taught in latvian language but excuse me chemistry biology and physics it's difficult to get it even in your own language and it does create a lot of problems for the students at the moment and of course it lowers their results it was the threat that these schools where at least some lessons are taught in their native russian would be closed down for good that scared the russian minority which constitutes one third of the country's population they initiated a referendum on making russian law to be a second state language something radical right wing parties call a threat to national integrity to fit into this vote as against our constitution which says life is a man a national state and always be it it splits our society which has to have one solid foundation if you want to it to be like russia has been lying not going to russia that would be. at least three quarters of a million people must vote yes for

a constitutional change to take place but with support predicted to be just haul that seems to be unlikely the outcome however could have been different if another three hundred twenty thousand residents were allowed to vote those are ethnic russians who spare and grandparents came here after nine hundred forty five they were denied citizenship after a lot of it became independent and are still carrying allien passports people will do for regaining independence because. people. voted for. and afterwards. and it's a fraud it's a problem. it's a problem. it's a problem of relations between the state. the newly appointed council of europe's commissioner for human rights believes the vote will not solve the discrimination problem and that its readers handling of the russian community that should be

changed to have the human rights of children being born in. the clear norms in the convention on the rights of the child every child has a right to citizenship from birth regulating language use in the private sphere this also has human rights implications raise issues of proportionality here i think that things should be reviewed though it is widely accepted here that the russian language referendum will fail the russian minority hopes that the vote will bring their struggle out of the shadows and force the government to at least open a dialogue. russians are contemplating another vote to introduce changes into the citizenship law that is to abolish the so-called ellie and passports and grant citizenship to those who are living with it and many say in this case they have a good chance of succeeding as they would only need a little more than two hundred thousand positive. reports. in latvia. twenty four hours

a day coming up in the next few minutes as healthy living becomes more fashionable russia's organic farming looks to cash in with independent shops aiming to challenge supermarkets also. fear keeps you in control if you. are to be manipulated by somebody telling you to do something rather than questioning what they say almost going beijing's voice is heard loud in the international arena we also people on the streets if there is good reason to fear the two countries. that all still to come for you but first greece is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy the future of bailed out portugal is uncertain and the single currency itself could be in trouble the ranks of people writing off the eurozone and even be european project itself only swimming in number so perhaps that's why the message for united europe is being pushed on an all new platform the classroom. reports but what do you know about your country

and the capital is there on not just some. spanish french english. these youngsters are attending one of the fourteen european schools that are primarily to educate children of e.u. stuff we are the only system which is able to provide education in twenty three different languages you know the more europe is united in their city and that's what we leave every day in the european school but outside the classroom reality says otherwise for now differences seem to transcend unity critics along accuse the e.u. of brainwashing children through education parra for an alien that they claim promote a stormy eyed vision of the e.u. a comment from a european commission representative at an education fair appears to support that point but he could never be convinced the fellow was your member here you cannot

know when you're young. but this is. the work there is no push to export concepts from the european school model international curriculums apply now live in a two thousand and eleven report and later adopted by parliament. the european parliament repeats its request to the member states to promote the inclusion of the specific subjects on the background goals and functioning of the european union and its institutions which will help young people feel more involved in the process of european integration school curricula responsibility of individual member states to tailor to their own needs and their own classrooms and then you should not get involved in dictating what individual schools teach you know we don't want the european money wasted on pouring out pouring out the u. propaganda into our schools we see as part of our.