just the rock n roll bad fitting for the job we were doing. sometimes you see a story and it seems. you think you understand it and then something else you hear sees some other part of it and realize everything is. hard as a big. talk to some other news stories from around the world and rebels in sudan's darfur region say they have these forty nine international peacekeepers hostage they claim soldiers entered their territory without permission and were accompanied by

suspected intelligence offices most of those seized senegalese troops with the joint u.n. african union peace mission. prayers held life military drills on islands near its disputed maritime border with the north despite the threats of retaliation from pyongyang the country does not appear to have reacted so far in two thousand and ten north korea responded to similar drills from its neighbor with an artillery attack that killed four and raised fears of a wider conflict tension comes two months after the death of north korean leader kim jong. il have intensified days before the country's crucial presidential demonstrates a set of the barricade roads. back with tear gas and rubber bullets to succeed in the violence and. protect president i don't want to withdraw his bid for a third term in office as it contradicts the constitution he says the decision should not apply to him as the term. it was put in place while he was in office.

your kitten capacitor and former east german human rights activist looks a shoo in to be germany's next president is the backing of chancellor angela merkel and all political parties as replacement for christian woman who was forced to quit last week of a corruption allegations that had opposed gallops bid for the presidency in two thousand and ten in favor of. a senior pakistani cleric with ties to the taliban in afghanistan says president hamid karzai has asked him to help mediate talks with insurgents because i was trying to contact the taliban in the neighboring country but his efforts to secure the help of pakistan civilian and military leaders have apparently failed so far military contributor says it's washington that should be negotiating with islamabad one of the main challenges for the afghan president during his visit to pakistan was how to persuade the pakistani military and civilian leadership to mend their ways

and to sue poort with the negotiation process between the united states and going to government and the taliban however despite their best intentions in cobol down washington d.c. their whole formit of negotiating with taliban was doomed from the beginning to do the right thing the right way the united states has to told directly to islamabad and only after this successful completion of this negotiation only if then they have a chance to accomplish any positive development in rick installing peace and security both you know afghanistan and across the border a little later here an r.t. will be joining our intrepid explorer james brown as he goes native while traveling

across russia. i. was. wrong. and the latest edition of discovering russia is coming away in just over an hour

from now next so it's the business update with dmitri. thanks bill oil prices have jumped to the highest levels in nine months after iran halted crude exports to the u.k. and france on sunday now this move follows the european union's decision to stop buying iranian oil starting in july the west hopes to persuade iran to curb its nuclear program brant is trading at almost one hundred twenty one dollars per barrel the have the gains for the. two which is currently trading at just over one hundred five dollars per barrel now experts don't expect prices to climb much as they say radian risks for the most part have already been priced in despite a surge in prices analysts say iran's decision is more of a symbolic act even so. from the north capitol expects the issue to keep prices high for months to come. particular story has been taking

a lot longer than one should expect and i expect it can last for another several months during which the oil will be a normally high. but i am pretty sure that as soon as this will be the result one way or another the oil will normalize what is the normal price of oil definitely for w. should be below one hundred dollars per barrel because otherwise the price for. a regular unleaded will be more than four dollars a gallon which is kind of disastrous in the year off the presidential campaign whatever is higher than that i consider is a normal level but we can definitely experience that in the months to come. meanwhile iran is turning to barter as it offers gold in oil in return for food

coming sanctions by the united states and europe make it difficult for iran to pay for imports in euro's and dollars arabian traders are in talks with russia now over using rubles to pay for grain over the past two weeks iran bought more than one million tonnes of grade from russia and that's a significant increase on last year. served through the markets in the us they are closed for president's day meanwhile in the europe they're coming to an end of the session the footsies up point seven percent of x. one point four percent that's on news that the french finance minister is says all elements are now in place for greece to get us next bailout a lot. in russia pretty much the same picture with the obvious ending the session more than one percent higher than my six point seven percent a good start to the week so you always moving the my six and these are primarily energy shares and financials gas from our point one percent is good thing it's winning streak but the outstanding gainer was russia's biggest peer group baltic

moments forty percent on news its parent company calls will be buying out the remaining twenty percent stake in about to go with the. bureau has also been seeing some gains versus the greenback on monday as in hopes that european leaders would sign off on greece's second bailout package and on china's montreux easing over the weekend. kastrup ukraine may get yet another discount for russian gas the energy ministry in moscow is calling for the resumption of talks that follows the decision by gas from last week to cut prices for european customers by ten percent moxy moscow from u.b.s. believes the russian monopoly will have to offer more concessions if it wants to remain competitive. the more you season because you have thought. sustain your market share in the environment there are some i couldn't your site

called me and they said drink yourself cheaper and more flexible as you can provide told n.p.r. of the outcome of this situation the sooner we just cover a pretty percent of the total exports i guess will be all the question was eighty percent that remains so then potentially this ten percent is what gives them with a way to put you to get to but i pull out the customers for the biggest customers. for more business news there's a website forward slash business we have all stories over that where you can join me in fifty five minutes time i'll be here with that. you're.

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the eat. them it's. just split it's the best spirit to get some other. mug.

this is. the u.s. and nato countries support of syria's opposition is driving the nation into. washington is calling on president. support for the rebels. for a political settlement in the country. recently visiting damascus. greece's creditors debate whether. one hundred thirty billion euro bailout.

and the french finance minister the. population increases raging against the massive cuts pushed in with repeated clashes between police and protesters. in washington. attacking. the time. being visited by u.n. inspectors. program is peaceful. its diplomats abroad look. back with another some of those stories in about fifteen minutes from now in the meantime the group of twenty major economies met this weekend in mexico to lay the groundwork for the g. twenty summit later this year the formal focus on the social and political dimensions of the economic crisis up next we talked to the russian finance minister

so one of about what twenty twelve has in store. especially about the relative mrs larne if mark onto our program now and number of world leaders including the russian president i want to have a possible global recession how likely do you thin this is. this it is indeed a global recession is possible to a large extent it will be decided by the kind of decision making euro zone countries and other countries caught in the debt crisis are making the priority issue for europe and the eurozone is how financial markets and institutions function today european countries are taking a number of steps to provide banks and financial companies with liquidity so they can settle accounts and lend to the economy driving the economy forward rather than allowing it fall back into recession certainly one of the key points of tension in

the eurozone is to what extent countries such as greece will implementor reforms to normalize their budgetary and financial situation the e.u. is macro economic well being depends on the success of these steps budgetary first of all there was no. how susceptible is the russian economy to the developing global crisis and problems in europe in particular. we live in one space therefore many of our companies are export oriented any reduction in europe's economic growth rate or in european demand can have a negative impact on the growth rate of the russian economy exports would slow down and perhaps even prices for all resources would drop due to lower demand in the euro zone consequently russia's export potential would drop which in turn could slow russia's economic growth rate and cause tax revenues to drop it's obviously of concern of us we're monitoring the global economic situation very carefully and we're preparing for various scenarios we do have the ability to cope with

a downturn we have the reserve fund and on. distributed funds in the federal budget which we can redeploy as anti crisis measures should the russian economy declines we also have the guarantee fund we've made allowances in the budget to use it for supporting strategic industries therefore we've got the right tools just in case but hopefully we won't have to use them what they do us being more active in balancing its budgets doesn't that pose a threat to the stability of the world's financial system in your opinion almost of course america's debt now exceeds one hundred percent of its g.d.p. so now all countries whose debt exceeds mastery criteria should start thinking about cutting deficit and debt levels sure deficit cutting may lead to a situation where states cut spending this will depress demand and the slowdown in the economic growth it is vital those states carry out structural reforms so the consolidation does not negatively affect growth otherwise there's

a risk of an uncontrolled downward spiral when spending cuts lead to a slump in growth which leads to reduced income which in turn means less spending the challenge now is that countries with high levels of debt take a consolidated position on ways of getting out of this situation this is going to be on the agenda at this weekend's g twenty finance ministers meeting in mexico. what should be done about the axes dollars that have accumulated in the global economy. indeed it's spread all over the world because most countries keep their gold and currency reserves in bonds and equities of reliable states in fact the usa is one of those with a high rating russia to keep some of its reserves in american assets but america is running certain risks on its long term stability and security. we will look however at how they approach implementing a whole set of proposals to the us congress on balancing the budget we hope to see

such measures implemented and the risks we are talking about reduced. or bigger than that of russia's accession to the w t o is a well timed move especially now in a time of crisis how will it affect the financial services sector and what's going to happen to banks. in fact we can even say now that russia has practically entered the w t o because we observe most of the w t o imposed restrictions we hope to gain some benefits and advantages from our w t o entry in order to increase competition and make it possible to protect our goods in western markets within the w t o framework that is why our companies have already incurred the expenses linked to w t o entry now we are waiting to see the exactions positive impact on russia's economy or what are your forecasts for the g.d.p. growth this year and inflation you know. we hope inflation this year will be lower than in two thousand and eleven at least the first weeks of two thousand and twelve

indicate the inflation rate is much lower than last year however we've postponed raising tyrus for housing and utilities as the services of other natural monopolies to july first this year so this year the inflation rate will go up slightly but this will happen a bit later than last year as for economic growth we expect the economy to grow at a rate of about three point six to four percent we hope that the global situation will contribute to us failing to fulfill our forecasts there the basis for our budget and any did line in economic growth rates also decreases the inflow of taxes we stand to lose approximately one hundred fifty billion rubles even if the growth rate drops by just one percent that is why it's vitally important for us today we are talking about the need for structural reform that would make our economy more attractive to business growth is above all stimulated by investment and investment always comes where economic policy is clear and where investors feel comfortable now you have just mentioned and that's meant but what are your forecasts for

capital flight from russia this year which seems russia is so huge capital flight worth eighty four billion dollars last year really it used to be a trend in many developing economies i think that in conditions where liquidity has started to appear in west european countries. and the european central bank has started injecting funds into the banking system the question of capital flight that took place last year will be less thorny for russia this year. and. how much of the state budget will come from oil and gas revenue to the weather. and gas revenues accounted for almost half of all federal budget revenues last year this year we initially planned a smaller share about forty five percent of budget revenues will come from oil and gas but in view of the fact that oil prices are still strong we cannot rule out that these revenues may be higher than predicted our task is to prevent these market determined prices from provoking a rise in public spending because all these prices are market determined and we

cannot allow the market to determine our budget expenditure in our view these bones should be channeled into our reserve funds so they can be used in case the foreign economic situation gets worse today it's variable but tomorrow it may get worse. and my last question is about europe what measures should you have take to overcome the crisis austerity measures could undermine demand and that would make it impossible to relaunch the greek economy how can russia protect itself or europe or . europe simply needs a clear and coherent stance on questions related to the financial sector if european countries especially greece faces certain problems because of the absence of this clear cut stance on funding and provision of liquidity it makes the market distrust the competence of the european authorities if you're asking how russia is going to participate in all this a regular g twenty meeting will consider how to increase the international monetary fund's resources if we manage to increase the money behind the i.m.f.

to six hundred billion dollars some of it will be spent supporting individual european countries and it should help further stabilize the euro zone let's hope the g twenty meeting will agree to provide extra money for the i.m.f. in this context russia will contribute additional resources. thank you very much you're welcome.

explosives were telling. us . live. news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. operation today. download the official auntie application to go on

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oh i see. it's all designed to keep you closed in your. world as a prison. you know you leave somebody in there for a couple hours like that in a stress positions. you have this fear of the unknown in this stress sort of building and. i've seen interrogations go on ten twelve hours they chose songs i remember from marilyn manson. slayer the two songs would be angel of death and raining blood to me those are war coming up here into iraq coming to the baghdad. charlie poole of the bodies to the floor which is the rock n roll band it was fitting for the job we were doing.

wealthy british style. markets why not. find out what's really happening to the global economy because a report on 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 don't know i'm sorry welcome to the big picture.

top stories this hour on r.t. chinese state media says the u.s. and nato countries support of syria's opposition fighters is driving the nation into all out civil war beijing and moscow are calling for a political settlement in the country with a top chinese diplomat recently visiting damascus. greece's creditors' debate whether it will sink or swim as they decide on the next one hundred thirty billion euros by no means is met all the months to secure it as the population rages against the cards. rather than washington one is run against attacking iran's nuclear sites urging for time to let sanctions do their job around currently being

visited by u.n. inspectors insists it's a toy program is peaceful. term brings up that for the moment i'll be back with more on those stories in less than fifteen minutes from now in the meantime dimitris next with the sport. hello the sports in our team thanks for joining us this hour coming up in the program. rail to moscow prepared to take on spanish giants real madrid in the first stage of the champions league round of sixteen encounter here in the russian capital. is a typical retitle one number for all the federal winston the world tournament in what's done by beating del potro in straight sets. and american

has got them on our class. is to play in the world the ship's title in the slope style. football first real madrid how their final training session ahead of their champions league round of sixteen clash with moscow and as richard van porter reports their spanish giants have been absent form the series and will be struck favorites to book their place in the quarter finals. subzero temperatures well controlled simmering years team as they took to pollution to keep it ahead of tuesday's encounter the current leader leaders have a stunning a ray of challenge with their disposal of the likes of christiane a row now though karim benzema a miserable very attacking options however the portuguese expects a tough month chicken serious car a team who's come up against on a number of occasions non-normal you'll google my place is gone not only when i was the head coach will enter but also with chelsea back in two thousand.