the terrorist plot to kill vladimir putin after the presidential election on sunday is prevented by moscow and kiev. yes to reform the syrian people have overwhelmingly approved a new constitution but the e.u. is stepping up the pressure with tough new sanctions on president assad's regime. iran's nuclear tells r t that sanctions imposed on his country risk the railing of the already fragile talks over the country's controversial atomic program. and business we're looking at the rule rates against both the euro and the dollar it's been rallying since the beginning of the year on the back of those strong well prices and the money coming back into the country to pay tax bills more on that and

other stories and investors will. be watching r t live from moscow with the kevin zero in our top story at nine pm this monday evening a plot to kill vladimir putin after next sunday's presidential election has been prevented in a joint operation between ukraine and russia the suspects arrested earlier this month for a bomb plot confessed to planning an assassination attempt jacob griefs reports. initial information on this release by russian t.v. channel was soon substantiated though by key russian officials who lies to do we should stop press secretary to promise of better me a person and those in the ukrainian security services as well though it was bought to authorities attention of published in early favorite splosion oftenest they have

extensive special went off their desks a new plane for purses size to be killed by the explosion two people to taint and they were detained for several weeks interrogated i'd offer that confessions have been released which much of these reports are mation is based on the movements of our war with all over the civilization there is no answer this is biased by doku umarov misa world no chechen militant nuisance thought to be behind a number of deadly terrorist attacks took place in moscow over the last couple of years also while those involved said to be a fixer in this matter most lawyers now he said that he resided in london for a number of years and then he received training on how to use explosives that have been a number of assassination bids made against promise about a reputed particularly when he was serving as president and those alleged covered by forest curator souces such as in azerbaijan or iran or indeed ukraine as well

as such he does have a very substantial security entourage following wherever he goes take you are traveling on the road there are usually about seven vehicles behind him also traffic police backing them up and sometimes they take they were traveling around moscow the close of the roads to be closed down to assure extra security this does come of course at a very key time for the prime minister just ahead of those presidential elections to be held on the fourth of march assassination plots aside prime minister putin is gearing up for his presidential bid on sunday publishing his latest article outlining a vision of russia's future as he sees it but the focus on foreign policy the premier slammed u.s. efforts to promote regime change in the arab world too. 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 dimitri babbage says the kremlin simply wants the international community to adopt a more balanced in case specific approach to solving conflict i think the whole article is not anti western. would you know obviously want to cooperate with western powers he's just done hate people with certain actions or need to other western countries which as he proves in that article actually run counter the west interest itself. you know he wants the problem to be solved by syrians themselves without outside involvement and i think that's that's a very good difficult path 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 victors always stay you would you venture on the bank which

. he speaks about cold in the vulnerability of the united states seemingly it's a good concept you know why shouldn't some state be told lina vulnerable to security threats but he writes in his article that these stalled or invulnerability for the united states means total vulnerability for many others maybe for all of the us because then the united states would not only be the biggest power in the world with the biggest amount of firepower but also it will be able to strike anyone it wants to strike. this is our two and still ahead the costa blanca spring protest turnout in the thousands and the struggle to stay afloat through the country's deepening debt crisis from the. e-mails published on wiki leaks claim an israeli military attack on a rat is imminent again we got the details on how to appear later. next though the

european union to slap the syrian government with its toughest set of sanctions yet they include an asset freeze on officials and a ban on importing precious metals and minerals from the country. the latest from brussels aside from that all syria cargo flights will no longer be allowed to land at airports or wherever there is an exception to that if these cargo flights are carrying passengers they will be 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 twenty percent of trade in question here is you these new sanctions is will these actually be instructive in the past posed to asset freezes of about one hundred individuals surely it will get as asians including an oil and arms embargo yet the desired effect has not been achieved i mean the concert has been going on for eleven months now conflicts 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 of president bashar al assad to step down as well as organize a u.n. peacekeeping force now this today was mentioned by the dutch for the minister again floating the idea of a peacekeeping mission to the country although there have been no details on that yet now 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 later this week. as the e.u. puts the squeeze on the massacres then the syrian people have chosen a path of peaceful reform a new constitution is one massive support in sunday's referendum where there are ninety percent of voters saying yes the changes put forward by president assad are designed to end the ruling party's fifty year monopoly and pave the way for free elections officials say turnout top fifty seven percent while it's still raging in

some parts of the country including the flashpoint city of homs where dozens were reported killed over the weekend this is a u.s. led group of nations agreed to step up the pressure on the massacres and provide more assistance to the rebels but political analyst jeremy told the supporting on one side of the conflict he thinks is counterproductive. this group called the so-called friends of syria i don't think that god's intervention by the bulk of syrians the syrian people i mean they had an agenda which they tried to push through the simple fact is they couldn't they couldn't get it in the one thing that they have not contemplated during all these long months of inside syria is a negotiated settlement and they haven't pushed made any attempt to push the a provisional race towards negotiations and into dialogue with the syrian government and i think the main point here is the western mainstream narrative is fundamentally false it's based on higher moral ground being told by one side and i think anyone looking at the situation can see this no high moral ground held by the

side and in that situation it would seem to me the most constructive way forward would be to push both sides to towards talking to each other but once was not willing to do that. so a lot more ahead in this half hour of this from r.t. including playing with fire the u.s. and south korea beginning joint military exercises despite threats of missile strikes in retaliation from the north. vella big news story tonight now german lawmakers are within the past hour approved a new rescue package for greece this despite worries that athens will need even more cash in the future and suggestions from germany's interior minister that it's time greece left the eurozone altogether the one hundred thirty billion euro bailout was agreed in principle last week after months of tense discussions among the eurozone leaders germany as you with richest economy has to contribute a majority towards it but there's a sense of unease in a little hard to keep coughing up cash to prevent a greek debt default it's the second bailout now in a little over a month and it said to be sure athens can pay its debt is for the time being at

least i spoke to political analyst william and he thinks the bailout plan is tailored to push greece out of the. moment. but i don't think the effort is to keep our friends in the euro the effort is to buy time until after the french elections and of april early may for president so that the thing doesn't blow up before those elections and some time later in the year perhaps as early as june july maybe later in the autumn it's expected that greece is going to leave the euro zone my analysis of the terms that germany imposed insisted on for the greek second be a lot of hundred thirty billion or so stringent that it was preplanned to force greece out to get the weakest link out of the euro zone if the new city of new york is on and do accept these austerity cuts and so forth it will be an economic catastrophe greece is already in an economic depression now and we want to define the do word

and the additional austerity on top of that is going to create economic situation inside greece where there is no way that the numbers will add up by twenty twenty to bring that down to one hundred twenty percent of g.d.p. so it's just. absurd to imagine that greece is going to stay in the euro. but while euro zone leader is hard at work trying to ensure greece remains within the euro for now their attention may soon need to shift to spain to the countries feeling the pinch of those deep cuts in public spending particularly education and protests is a bit out of the streets again this last weekend sarah firth reports from impoverished valencia. you a sentiment was riding high off the spain during the year is saying back in two thousand and two that a decade on in years of us starting to put us all back to earth with an economic crash yeah get. government policies and we were we were into was no question of quality but for all the latest round of

cuts and reforms but nationwide protests 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 touching the low income people. and they just don't see anything that's they think it's right thing. to bring not the basic reason of names class but that this place and. that is the coming late this country in the grip of the year it was in one thousand a bombed out in the book take the reigns to look right now and again here and there's a magical human being that didn't because upon the population was 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 i mean we think we're just a little bit better and resolve the political helping is more or less the same way . that you have it 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 agrees with the press population being squeezed even tighter we are about two years should be going to greece in terms of pro. but you see the policy which the troika. and the international more you found european central bank and european union are imposing on but if countries greece italy spain portugal it's economics one o one is very simple to understand that i mean if these countries. with problems

and you force a. public spending will you. push them deep into recession like greece spain billions in foreign debt held largely by germany and france it's money which wouldn't be paid back less painfully. schools without heating teachers without jobs came listeners and unemployment on the rise makes for a bleak prognosis 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 surface r.t. valencia in spain. still ahead from politics to prison his career is proved by some drunken brawls but now ukraine's former interior minister faces more serious charges the details ahead. russia's called on iran to provide assurances to the

international community that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only but in return moscow says to rob's writes to you ray richmond must be recognized. it is a 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 right exercised by other members of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty. the statement comes after the un's atomic officials said they're on able to confirm whether iran has the ability to build nuclear weapons to iran was criticized for its failure to cooperate with them during two of the recent visits to the country the western allies suspect the islamic states building a nuclear bomb the countries under tough sanctions from the u.s. and the e.u. with israel also threatening military action that something iran's nuclear envoy said might put existing sensitive discussions about their program at risk over the

past hour i spoke live to sultan a and he also said they are open to genuine nuclear inspectors but not the american agencies they represent. they are warning that couple of courses include the united states is trying to run day agency so that they can dictate from washington what vienna should do and that is why we don't not permit such a thing to occur and that is the whole issue that the agency as a professional technical organization should do its work and that is why you see they make me so many noses here and there they do not let the agency to do its work ambassador and that is why we want expect all countries including russia and others and i'm very proud please that last meeting in fact russia and china ambassadors along with a hundred countries of none and i movement all together questioned what had happened in fact namely the least of confidential information that that we need the

mobilization of member states to prevent something happening in vienna which did give way this agency from its is actually that was just part of a full interview that ambassador sultan i gave to syria you can see it in full coming up next hour again. south korea and the united states have begun large scale joint naval drills despite north korea's threats to attack if provoked for gang the exercises involving hundreds of thousands of troops or a silent declaration of war in twenty ten the north responded to drills from its neighbor not tell area tech they killed four people at the time and raised fears of a wider conflict to get franks an expert on north korea in east asia use it in a university he tells he thinks it will take much to like the feel. of korea has issued such statements in the past and lucky louie these purchased statements but you never know till you can play with fire safely for a while and until you create some kind of

a big blast and 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 you have about two hundred thousand south korean troops about thirty 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 impossible short of nuclear weapons although we don't know exactly how many and in wars in which quality they are there but this is definitely a very hard area and it's surrounded by countries like south korea japan and china so if david come 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. and you can find more on the subject in our website r.t. dot com and this is what else is online just a click away for you to night as the world's oil map shifts new see the. new battles could be ahead for the. i see black gold we've explored analysis in full on our website. ukraine's preparing for political turbulence after one of the leading lights of the country's orange revolution was convicted of embezzling state funds former interior minister you know been sentenced to four years in prison if he's elected i got the details from. go to that his speeches once ignited thousands of hearts during the two thousand and four orange revolution where you deal with sankoh was one of the

driving forces now and no that's inflammatory rhetoric from ukraine's former interior minister is heard from behind bars. president yannick which in a gang fight against corruption that's lawful 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 from unlawful distribution of high place jobs in the interior ministry to using state money to buy a flat for his personal driver the charges against will send cool landed him a four year prison term and the confiscation of all his property his trial has lasted for more than a year during which would send all 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 in both trials loud protests of support were ever present and say and spirit such strong public outcry has seriously changed the country's political

landscape and with. the ruling parties reading drop below you'll to mission calls party the public doesn't approve of persecution and that's what i'm ashamed was reading is two to three times higher now even higher than that of president you know. the ruling elite unwillingly made let's go into 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 killed with controversy from fistfights with keef's mayor to being detained in frankfurt airport for drunk. that along with doubtful decisions during his ministerial work makes the ruling party believe he is guilty then well you know my your if you didn't have enough education in 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 but he had no right to do that as 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. look singles do found said weeks ago that whatever the verdict they would file a lawsuit with the european court of human rights is expected to review on april seventeenth combined with a continuous global criticism of the tymoshenko trial this could put even more strain on key of the ruling elite the opposition has been picketing central kiev ever since june last year and tymoshenko as daughter says that the protests will not die down even when the euro twenty twelve 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 alexey recessed the r.t. reporting from kiev in ukraine. will news in brief now for you and a suicide car bomb attack in afghanistan nine dead and several others wounded the blast happened in 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 of erupted across the country leading to the deaths of more than thirty people. the train carrying around seventy five people is to rails in canada three railroad employees were killed dozens of passengers were injured when carriages came off the tracks there the train has been traveling from niagara falls to toronto but these one air ambulances on standby as crews work to try to pull the passengers from the wreckage because of that the real meat is not yet. show business news the silent film the artist stole the show at the academy awards taking home five prizes including best picture and best actor it's the first silent movie to win since the very first oscar ceremony back in nineteen twenty meryl streep back the best actress award for her portrayal of former british prime minister margaret thatcher in the iron lady well martin scorsese's prison adventure hugo also claim five awards in the technical categories. for a ton of the check on the market see we're doing the world of business kareen is

there the business desk bring us up to date here. given the rule has hit new highs against both the euro and the dollar it's been rallying since the beginning of the year on the back of strong oil prices and also by the money that's coming back into the country to pay tax bills at the end of the month now let's look at the numbers that we're seeing here as we see a twenty nine to the dollar which is six months high and again against the euro it's the best since mid two thousand and ten below thirty nine elsewhere you know is lower against the dollar or is declining bringing an end to a day rally at tensions over iran's nuclear program have been one of the main factors driving all prices higher but today we're see that prices slightly declining as light sweet is trading at one hundred and eight point seven four and some brand as one hundred twenty four dollars twenty six cents. now not too much enthusiasm on the equity markets as well here in russia the r.t.s.

and i'm isaac's close mixed financials were among the main gainers of the day would be t.v. bank one and a quarter of a percent spare bank also closed higher it has signed a memorandum of understanding with italian carmaker fiat the companies are reportedly planning to jointly produce cars and russia but most energy majors finished in the red with a look or a third of a percent down as you can see right now on the screen now europe closed lower as well the footsie and the dax lost over a quarter of a percent despite the fact that the german parliament approved a greek rescue package banks and autos were driving the decliners monday let's cross over to the u.s. right now where markets reversed from earlier losses and are climbing back into the black as we see following data showing pending home sales at their highest in nearly two years. well that's our job davis but you can always find more stories on

our website r.t. dot com slash business so join me or join me in less than one hour. we have a global war lords war criminal what's we have a lot of groups deal with the causes of the sluices also our views in the right enough to my marriage was like many at that marriage but it wasn't just the smadi when i was fourteen yes you can liberate other women and you certainly can't

do it through the barrel of a gun effective social changes can be the afghans themselves afghan men and women we believe i'm going to stun them not to the cross paths without the part of the patient it's coming up on the shelf and at a construction 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. wealthy british style sun it's just my time to write a. story. for the. markets why not. find out what's really happening to the global economy in cars or. lord.

you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so for langley 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 hartman welcome to the big picture.

more news today violence is once again flared up the film these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. the giant corporations are all today.