terrorist plot to kill vladimir putin awarded by russia and ukraine was planned for sunday during the presidential election. as the syrian people await the results of a landmark referendum on a new constitution of the e.u. steps up foreign pressure by ushering in a tough new set of sanctions on damascus. and cash rich berlin expected to back to new rescue deal for greece despite unease that it won't be enough to save athens and worries that spain may be yet to follow suit.

four pm in moscow i mattress are good to have you with us here on r t our top story a plot to kill vladimir putin during next sunday's presidential election has been for oil did a joint sting operation between russia and ukraine three suspects arrested earlier this month confessed to plotting the assassination of one of whom reportedly made contact with terror operatives while living in london or his skin off as the tales . budget appointments press secretary confirmed to r d that the invents did take place however he restrained from commenting any further meanwhile channel one has shown the video of two suspects describing how he prepared for this assassination one of them said that it was actually ordered by interior is no cool one off but this information is still has to be confirmed since the investigation is still ongoing we also said that three people in this group three men they studied at the root of all four putin's motorcade the amount of bodyguards there and more hiding

from the boys switching flats and. they were putting together an explosive device which went off right in that apartment the prime minister is quite heavily guarded by dozens of security officers both a new uniform and undercover the motorcade itself isn't the large really it usually consists of up to it was seven cars this courted by a round for traffic police vehicles but the entire route all of the motorcade was also goaded by security officers this isn't the first time that was in which he became a target of an assassination plot but then never came to actual attempts on his life. several of the country's previous leaders were also targets of murder plots boris yeltsin mikhail gorbachev leonid brezhnev and of letting your lenin all manage to avoid being murdered thanks to their security guards and intelligence services.

assassination plots aside prime minister putin is gearing up for his presidential bid sunday publishing his latest article outlining the vision of russia's future with a forest a focus on foreign policy the premier slam u.s. efforts to promote regime change in the arab world. the recent events showed that the desire to impose democracy by force can and often does lead to opposite results leads to a rise in extremism which attempts to change the course of the country's development and secure rule. putin also reaffirmed moscow's refusal to back the u.s. led drive to pressure the syrian president to step down political analyst dmitri babich says the kremlin simply wants the international community to adopt a more balanced encase specific approach to solving conflicts i think the whole article is not anti western. we do know obviously one of the ration was western

boss he's just on hate deal with certain actions or we need to and other western countries which as he proves in that article actually run counter the west interest itself. you know he wants the program to be sold by syrians themselves without outside involvement and i think that's that's a very good difficult forward but it's the only possible one because we have some experience with civil wars in russia a civil war which is one by one side or another it's never a solution because the victor of all this day you would your eventual on the vanquished. he speaks about cold in the vulnerability of the united states seem in the it's a good concept you know why shouldn't some state witold lean vulnerable to security threats but he writes in his article that the stole doing vulnerability for the united states means total vulnerability for many other us maybe for all of the us

because then the united states would not only be the biggest in the world with the biggest amount of firepower but also it will be able to strike anyone it wants to strike. the european union has slapped the syrian government with its toughest set of sanctions yet these include an asset freeze and a ban on importing precious metal metals and minerals from the country the e.u. was previously syria's top trading partner let's get more on the details on this from artie's tests are live for us in brussels. so tell us what's the e.u. expecting to achieve by this move and what effect have the sanctions had up to this point. well the objective of the e.u. is clear here they're still trying to send a message to the syrian government as to the lack of support that they have now from the e.u. countries just to reiterate the new sanctions that they imposed today they're the harshest so far they included asset freezes another seven four and

a syrian officials that are close to president bashar al assad and they've also imposed sanctions on the syrian central bank there were some countries doing excessive business with syria that had argued against this nevertheless it has pushed through and also they have about the purchase of gold precious metals and diamonds from the country and aside from that all the cargo flights the longer be allowed to land at airports or wherever there is an exception if these cargo flights are carrying passengers given the all clear now it has to be said that the e.u. was syria's largest search trading partner accounting for more than a twenty percent of trade question here is you these new sanctions is will these actually be effective in the past posed to asset freezes of about one hundred thirty eight organizations including an oil and arms embargo yet the desired effect has not been achieved i mean the conflict has been going on for eleven months now the conflict still continuing between the two sides of the country and all of this

comes on the back of that meeting on friday between the friends of syria who had announced who given a statement saying that they would like president bashar al assad to step down as well as organize a u.n. a peacekeeping force and this today was mentioned by the dutch foreign minister again floating the idea of a peacekeeping mission to the country although there have been no details. yet it has to be said that this is not the last of the sanctions that syria is going to get the u.k. foreign secretary william hague called for even more sanctions on the country and he said that new efforts for a u.n. resolution on the country will be taken up again in new york this week. writer a lot of with us from brussels thanks for that update. as the e.u. puts the squeeze on damascus the syrian people expecting the results of saturday's vote on a new constitution there are forms put forward by president assad are designed to

end the ruling party's fifty year monopoly on power and pave the way for free elections officials say there was high turnout despite a boycott from the opposition violence though raging in other parts of the country including the flashpoint city of homes where dozens were reported killed saturday rebels say it's a massacre the government insists it's fighting armed terrorists political analyst only are a lot of the shabby things putting pressure on assad is unbalanced and doesn't address the needs of syria. the direction is west. and the what's the plan to remove a president i thought the home office and they don't care at what cost if one wants to be heading to with the city and really can't include basic human rights and basic a human preserving human life one should call for dialogue one should. not push mom between the different groups within the city and cultural diversity to come together and bring in a new solution and i think this step that was done with the vote that i find i'm

going for the constitution the amendments is that this step may be a small step but it is step forward in that direction towards the conciliation and the true reform true democratic reform that can save this city the destruction that is being prepared for it it apparently from some forces in the west well still ahead here on our t.v. playing with fire the u.s. and south korea begin joint military exercises despite threats of missile strikes in retaliation from the north. but first russia has called on iran to provide assurances to the international community that its nuclear program is for peaceful uses only in return moscow says tehran's right iranian enrichment should be recognized. ocean to us it is this it's very important for world powers to confirm once around answers all the questions raised by the international atomic energy agency on its nuclear program that it will in turn have the right to peaceful

uranium enrichment this is the same rights exercised by other members of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty. the statement comes after the un's atomic officials said they were unable to confirm whether iraq has the ability to build nuclear weapons tehran was criticized for its failure to cooperate with them during two of their recent visits to the country western allies suspect the islamic state is building a nuclear bomb the country is under tough sanctions from the u.s. and e.u. with israel also threatening military action the former head of the u.n. watchdog shares his thoughts on the issue in our interview coming your way in about twenty minutes. iran does not need a weapon against iraq today they don't need to guess pakistan against russia against turkey so i don't see that tremendous pressure this gives me some hope that it would be possible to persuade them to move alt of investment or to and to assure that there will be no bomb making the question is how do you do it so

there are some things that could be put on the table in a discussion of the biggest thing i think would be if the israelis were to come up and say that look we are worried about your retirement we think you might use a bomb against us how about a swap we drop and do away with our military of our nuclear weapons and you stop all the everetts mint and it's egypt turkey all the others they agreed that commitments that we will have no regrets but we have no reprocessing that is what you call a nuclear weapon for you soon for the middle east and i think that's where the aim should be but if i mention that today they would laugh at. german lawmakers expected to back the new rescue package for greece later monday despite worries athens may need yet. more cash to come the hundred thirty billion euro belo was agreed in principle last week after months of heated discussions among euro zone leaders germany as europe's richest economy has to contribute the majority towards the deal but there is

a sense of unease in berlin over have to keep coughing up cash to prevent a greek debt default this is the second bail out a little more than eighteen months and insurers athens can pay its debt as for top of the time being but investment advisor patrick young thinks the game may already be up. greece is truly a tragedy in every sense of the word and i did what we're not doing is they're not only cutting i mean they're cutting flesh in fact they're possibly cutting into their own arteries and let's face it what does this deal are actually do for greece well what it says is that essentially if you want to do another five or six years old total potential destitution in all stare at you might just stand off with one hundred times the debt that they basically how it was a moment in countries like germany or canada that's a totally unreasonable unbelievable the tragedy of greece is that two three years ago when it first came to light that their financial figures were a complete fiction and we finally knew the truth that we'd also suspected all along

they really should be no need of the euro at that moment instead we've got this absolutely psychotic desire by a group of frankly well economically illiterate people in western europe particularly within germany who are desperate to manage to hold this all together and we've got another group of people who are absolutely determined to try and keep greece in the euro zone which are the credibly highly paid greek politicians and the poor greeks themselves are absolutely stranded there is no way that greece can manage to bring together all of these cuts so there is no possibility that greece is going to survive in the euro with the long term why we're throwing good money after bad and why we're beggaring actually the good people of greece on the ground absolutely defines launcher. euro zone leaders are hard at work to ensure greece remains within the euro their attention may soon need to shift to spain the country is feeling the pinch of deep cuts in public spending particularly in education and

protesters are out on the streets r t sarah firth reports from impoverished palencia. here is sentiment was riding high off the spain during the year is a back in two thousand and two but a decade on in years of us starting to put us all back to earth with an economic crash yeah games. if government policies and we were we were in town. and no question of quality but for all the latest round of cuts and reforms but nationwide protest in spain in valencia and it was the students leading the way as they took their complaints out of the classroom and onto the spanish streets and we're spending millions like we're rich but actually we're seeing that we're not rich at all i mean we have high schools without without heating you know there's no money there are cutting where they shouldn't they're cutting the low income people. and they just don't see anything that's they

think it's right to. bring not the basic prison of nations past that place and. that is the coming late this country in the grip of the year it was in one thousand above the thousands of people taking to the israelis who prayed and again the entirety magill you could understand because upon the population well spain's protests have by and large been peaceful they were worrying a familiar scenes last week a spanish what police clashed with protesters worried about the same thing happening here is happening going to be we do worry but we think we're just a little bit determined resolve the political helping is more or less the same. that you have because there's no money spain is not there yet the well being a very different country with very different problems it's now facing a scarily similar scenario to that of grace with the press population being

squeezed even tighter we are about two years should be going to greece in terms of . but you see the police see the troika. and the international more uniformed european central bank and european union are imposing on but in front of countries who nice these spain portugal it's economics one hundred one is very simple to understand that i mean if these countries. with problems and you force the. public spending you. push them deep into recession like greece spain billions in foreign debt how do largely by germany and france its money which wouldn't be paid back less spain to leave the year as a schools without heating teachers without jobs came listeners and unemployment on the rise make for a bleak program a safe and as the country tips into

a second recession and with more protests planned for later in the week seems like these could be set to become much more common on the streets of spain surf a spade and stay with us here on our t.v. still to come this hour from politics to prison is your started has been bruised by fist fights and drunken brawls now ukraine's former interior minister faces more serious charges stay with us for that. but first south korea and the u.s. have started a large scale joint naval drills despite north korea's threats to attack if provoked for pyongyang the exercises involving hundreds of thousands of troops are a silent declaration of war in two thousand and ten the north responded to drills from its neighbor with an artillery strike that killed four people and raised fears of a wider conflict rigor frock an expert on north korea and east asia at vienna university things it won't take much to light the touch paper. north korea has issued to state

such statements in the postes and look at these for just statements but you never know till you can play with fire safely for a while and the until you create some kind of a big blast sunday school you don't want to i'm really concerned because we have a new leader in north korea kim jong il with whom we have no experience whatsoever with whom we have a chance to actually open some new avenues for cooperation and for resolving all those pressing issues that we have on the table of about two hundred thousand south korean troops about in two thousand american troops in this one exercise alone on the north korean side we have over one million soldiers it's a state that is on the constant state of emergency on high alert is a state that is in possession of nuclear weapons although we don't know exactly how many and in walked in which quality they owe there but this is definitely a very

a hard area and it's surrounded by countries like south korea japan and china so if they become involved in some kind of military confrontation the whole thing can easily get out of hand so i do believe that we are facing a potentially dangerous situation. the world news at your fingertips at r.t. dot com we'll tell you what's online right now. countering the intelligence wiki leaks exposes millions of secret e-mails and what's being called the shadow cia private spy agency. as the world's oil map shifts new super powers emerging as well as new battles ahead for the price and black gold we have an expert analysis in the fall on our website.

ukraine is preparing for a political turbulence as one of the leading lights of the country's orange revolution is convicted of killing state funds former interior minister yuriy look sankoh was being tried for abuse of power like sarah chefs he has more from kiev. noted that his speeches once ignited thousands of hearts during the two thousand and four orange revolution where your real center was one of the driving forces now with no less inflammatory rhetoric from ukraine's former interior minister is heard from behind bars. president yannick over the gang fight against corruption that's lawful if they are corrupt through and through that's why they orchestrated this case against me which has nothing to do with criminal law only with their desire to get rid of political rivals with his trial has lasted for more than a year during which looks and who went on a hunger strike several times it is drawing clear parallels with that of ukraine's former prime minister yulia tymoshenko currently serving seven years in prison for

abuse of power and both trials loud protests of support were ever present and say experts such strong public outcry has seriously changed the country's political landscape but it was. the ruling party's reading drop below you'll to mission calls party the public doesn't approve of persecution that's what i'm ashamed was reading is two to three times higher now even higher than that of president you know coverage of the ruling elite unwillingly made go and to mission symbols of a struggle against themselves and any political force can now use these symbols to gain votes. just like his caseload sank us korea had also been filled with controversy from fistfights with keef's mayor as to being detained in frankfurt airport for drunken brawl that it will that along with doubtful decisions during his ministerial work makes the ruling party believe he is guilty then will you do us with and then my your if you didn't have enough education and law for this job

that's why he made many mistakes for instance he wants bragged of issuing a speeding fine to the president's son that you had no right to do that was only traffic police could and it was a violation if a person is in the wrong place he makes mistakes. and one needs to pay for his mistakes. and said weeks ago that whatever the verdict he would file a lawsuit with the european court of human rights because expected to review on april seventeenth combined with the continues global criticism of the tymoshenko trial this could put even more strain on t.v. ruling elite the opposition has been picketing central kiev ever since june last year and tymoshenko says that the protests will not die down even when the euro twenty well football championship comes to ukraine so the case will definitely add more spice to what is expected to be a rather turbulent year for the ukrainian politics let's see reporting from kiev in ukraine. turning now to some other stories making headlines across the globe

a suicide car bomb attack in afghanistan has ninety one and several others wounded a blast happened at the jalalabad airport in the eastern part of the country the taliban's claimed responsibility for the attack saying it was in revenge for the burning of korans at a u.s. military base last week days of deadly protests over the burning have erupted across the country leading to the deaths of more than thirty people. a train carrying around seventy five people darrelle in canada three railroad employees were killed dozens of passengers injured when the truck carriages came off the tracks the train had been going from niagara falls to toronto at least one air ambulance is on standby as crews work to pull passengers from the wreckage the cause of that irrelevant still under investigation. and the silent film the artist stole the show with the academy awards taking home five prizes including best picture and best actor it's the first first silent movie to win since the very first oscar ceremony in nineteen twenty nine meryl streep bagged the best actress

award for her portrayal of former british prime minister margaret thatcher in the iron lady a martin scorsese parisian adventurer hugo also claimed five awards in the technical categories. as we reported vladimir putin has been outlining his foreign policy goals ahead of the presidential vote next week europe's energy policy came in for some criticism. of the business redevelopment joining us live with the latest. yes that's right matt and his article published in must use paper prime minister putin is offering his view on how to resolve european europe's economic issues and he suggests forming a common economic zone with the european union and possibly even you know offering financial help in return putin is insisting that you have should give up the energy market reforms known as the third energy package which boils down to this companies such as gas pump should not be allowed to own production and transportation

networks at the same time because he has been critical of the idea for a long time saying it aims destroying these energy prices formula that penned the oil price to use in their own countries now none of this seems to be new for the russian investors judging by the market reaction markets are mixed this hour as you can see here the r.t.s. is up just slightly. off a percent of the mys it's slightly down on the biggest movers on the mind six this hour as we can see russian bank v t b that's gaining over one and a half percent but russia. is also managing to stay afloat. slipped into the red unfortunately now stocks in europe all lower today the pussy on the decks are sliding and investors are looking out for germany to approve a second austerity package for greece all is actually declining as well for the first time in eight days tensions over iran's nuclear program have been one of the

main factors when it comes to oil prices and following a major rally the crude has slipped into red this monday losing slightly as you can see now and higher dollars also putting pressure on crude prices the dollar is a gaining against the euro on friday the ruble strengthening against the dollar. and that's all i have for you this hour but do join me in about fifteen minutes for more.

happiness and tragedy. do rocher. and beatrice. family. and does a link. on the bottom of a coffee swamp. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so for lengthly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realized everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big

picture. the news today violence is once again flared up. and these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. trying to corporations rule today. will be. funny it's technology innovation called in news developments from around russia we've got the future covered.

war could be notes we have a lot of. groups. all. right you know my marriage was like many at that marriage but it wasn't. just maddy when i was fifteen yes you can liberate other women and you certainly can't do it through the barrel of a gun only effective social changes can be the afghans themselves afghan men and women we believe i'm going to stun him not to across. the part of the patient it's a position and that it comes to actually stop people in the obama administration talking about how much they care about the women of afghanistan it's not true they don't care about the women of afghanistan.