syria's first steps to democratic reform ridiculed by the us as washington stops just shy of labeling president assad a war criminal one of the pumping weapons into the war torn state. france spain greece the czech republic can belgium and just thirty protests hit the government's hack and slash policies leave economies and public patients at the point of collapse. and a charge over the murder of prominent russian journalist anna politkovskaya says the killing may have been orchestrated in london a fugitive russian businessman and a suspected terrorist top stories this hour. international

news and comment live from moscow this is r.t. with you twenty four hours a day a source in the syrian military says the army has now reestablish control over the battle torn city of homs it's also reported various rebel groups that fled the city have been surrounded near the border with lebanon it follows a claim by a senior rebel general that his militia group had been supplied with french and american weapons and even aircraft missiles on the diplomatic front earlier u.s. secretary of state hillary clinton compared the syrian leader bashar al assad to a war criminal but stopped short of directly making accusation and his rhetoric aims to downplay the reform adopted by syria to make the political process more democratic and give the opposition a voice and as riff an ocean reports from syria there are fears that outside interference is fueling further bloodshed. but the borders doors and

tate despite international isolation series borders have remained opened and easy to pass through and that may have played a crucial role in the military's. of the countries conflict almost immediately after the crisis began here last march they were reports of weapons been smuggled through to arm president al assad's opponents one thousand dollars for a truck full of weapons capable of delivering wholesale destruction and that's how marshall kind of will pay to smugglers usually iraqi oil lebanese drivers according to ziad ismail chief of the customs service on the border with lebanon. these people bring weapons here to destroy our nation to try to kill syrian people and the syrian territory to arm our enemies. syria has more than two thousand kilometers of front year with five states israel iraq jordan turkey and lebanon the

syrian cities where the most violent clashes have taken place homes and there are all over the in an hour of the border is a fact that some believe has determined their fate or destiny is this is one of three checkpoints on the three hundred fifty kilometer syrian lebanese border in the last year as we've been told here there were only three attempts to smuggle weapons across your business confiscated thousands of bullets dozens of guns and hundreds of kilograms i have little metal pieces like this one used to make worlds but the source is main concern and their political point is like this one but parts of the border where there isn't any security at all but here look at this in the middle of nowhere there is nothing only one road across the road right now and at the same time are crossing the border and i'm already in lebanon. and further south see remains extremely vulnerable the city of daraa the cradle of the syrian

uprising it all started here and it continues to play a role in the country's crisis with the border with jordan just several kilometers away from here and numerous reports suggesting that foreign weapons and troops going is only flow through it has become one of the weakest points in the country's security. this city has become the scene of fierce and bloody clashes at least twice in the conflicts twelve month history the authorities have claimed that many of the so-called free syrian army have in fact come from across the border. they appear shoot and kill and then they disappear immediately they arrive from abroad but they are not from jordan they use this country's border many of them are from africa. we are showing their weapons and led to the seized in military operations now. in the army we don't have weapons from israel and america sniper guns and night vision binoculars advanced developed weapons we don't have it in syria this

what we confiscated was killing innocent people and to kill even more. while the international community condemns the regime and supports its opponents many believe all sides in the conflict should be held responsible for violence across syria and with so many foreign weapons involved it's clear that the crisis thresh is far beyond these borders refinish nasty reporting from syria. well for more on these hearing crisis in the competing views on how it should be solved on our joined by he's a member of the syrian social club live in london what america's reaction to syria's referendum was to say the least unfriendly why is there so much hostility to the results of that referendum. well basically we've noticed since the very start of this problem in syria that the west in general did not welcome and

ridiculed actually every single reformist steps that the syrian government promised to do or actually took we've seen a lot of decrees over the past few months with regards to the freedom of impression of expression with regard to the multi-party election and so on and so forth recently the referendum however all these steps were either none mentioned at all by the international media all pretty kewl somehow as being either too little too late or not sufficient or you know their credibility are not ok this is i i believe to try to undermine the syrian government's commitment towards reform so a positive gesture by assad and yet though rejected by the opposition there in syria not just by other foreign countries. well the referendum itself in my opinion was a sort of impressive feat you know to have sort of eight million people go to the polls in such circumstances is that is rather impressive the results of the

reform the results of the vote so much so coincide with. the recently conducted opinion poll back in december that said about fifty five percent of the population do not want prison as a rule i think that in a sense tells you that while some people may object to this or that article will probably want to include this or that article in the constitution people want to break this vicious circle and want to put the country political. in order for the country starts moving forward. the opposition obviously not happy at all i would actually invited them to be a little bit more proactive about it and start sitting at the table very. well in the meantime the opposition supposedly are being armed by the u.s. and france that's a claim from one of the rebels generals what do you make of that if that is

happening indeed. well that is a significant accusation cause we know that the arms have been rebel the the rebels have been armed by the outside all along and funded and supported nobody mentioned something like france and the us directly proxies for example in lebanon and turkey who offer such aids to these people but we know significantly that the. secretary of state hillary clinton of the united states did advise. the groups at a certain point so moment in time a few months back not to lay down their weapons perhaps their interest is to weaken or undermine the syrian government's position and control on the ground as much as possible so as to bring them to sort of negotiation table i might just very briefly you've got to finish in just a moment to briefly could assad hold on and implement meaningful change in the country or is it too late just very briefly could he hold on i think he can and i

think a lot of people would want him to hold because everybody is afraid of what to come next should the central government collapses and that's exactly what's keeping this interim government in its place and intact for the past year or so and i walk out thanks so much for your time joining us live there in london a member of the syrian social club thanks thank you very much. well the level has been talking to his cross talk guests and ask them just how far the international community can go interfering into series domestic affairs and here's a taste of what's coming up in full for you at seven thirty pm g.m.t. . the power of the security council is precisely the problem in these situations we've always had great power interventions with or without security council approval philip's idea of sovereignty is being inviolability is totally out of date and has been for at least twenty years the notion that states consider themselves to be beyond any external interference i mean we had the genocide convention in one

nine hundred forty eight before a myriad international treaties since then recognizing some role for the international community in intrastate affairs and that's that's all i welcome the problem is that i. disagree with what i've been saying this idea of. sovereign impunity is purely there to protect governments so that they can slaughter their own people and have no international accountability the idea of noninterference isn't about protecting genocide or governments. it. it's a day of mass protests across the e.u. with tens of thousands running against austerity and economic hardship in paris five major unions organized a massive march to pressure of brussels to tone down its austerity stance and instead focus on pro growth policies in the czech capital prague thousands of students are protesting against planned controversial university reforms even in

the bureaucratic heartland of the e.u. thousands gathered to demonstrate against brussels insistence that cuts are the only way to financial recovery correspondent tom barton he is in athens with more on what's happening so tom tell us what is going on there in the greek capital at the moment. well bill the the greek parliament you can see behind me is no stranger to protests and indeed there have been protests throughout the day and throughout greece today doctors have staged walkouts as have many public sector workers local councils were occupied and shut down by their workers throughout the day and there have been protests as well over a koan across greece and across the territory here with the message really that these cuts these cuts in pay these cuts in pensions are simply going too far inside the parliament things aren't much nicer either the politicians there sitting

late into the night last night to try and get the the cuts pushed through that they had already discussed to try and meet the criteria for this hundred thirty billion euro second bailout they did manage to make some quite serious decisions yesterday we're talking about a twenty two percent cut in wages across the board in the minimum wage thirty two percent if you're under twenty five years old and half of greeks under twenty five are unemployed really really tough cuts going through here also to pensions those really hard to stomach for many people and unions have turned out very very concerned over that protesting outside the parliament and outside that the european commission's building here a lot of flak being directed at perceived interference from brussels from other eurozone capitals in what is perceived to be greek

a greek problem that should be sorted out by greeks the euro zone members say well it's not quite as simple as that greece has been living beyond its means for years and it's time that it set its house in order although many people here on the opposition say well it's all very. well to say that but to launch cuts like this simply has economic ramifications that ignore the terrible human cost i was talking yesterday to the federation police chief the police protesting here in central athens they're usually on the other side of the barricades and he was telling me that some of his members are facing a terribly bleak future not even able to put their meals on the table and he didn't said the police federation wouldn't rule out even perhaps it was during some of its services essentially a pass or partial strike from the police this is the strength of feeling here and they want to try and send the message that these economic measures must not come

without consideration for the human cost here. tom thanks very much indeed for that artie's tom barton reporting live there in athens well let's now turn our attention to spain where people are angry at their government's deep cuts and the effect they're having on their own bleak future prospects today students and teachers are out in force railing against the strong impact austerity has had on education and sara firth is in madrid where crowds of gathered to voice their frustration. well the students have gathered at this hearing that in the faith tests are expected to continue for a while you can see groups of the students sitting around here we've been speaking to them they said their faith is to keep this demonstration peaceful but they want to get the point across that they're not going to accept these spending cuts affecting public services such as their education they feel it is unfair that at a point when the country is on the brink of another recession that they're being asked to pay for the debts and they say the price that they're being asked to pay is simply too high that it's their future that rests speaking to the people here

they will tell you exactly what it's like to be a student in a country that right now has moved on to see nine percent of the u.s. unemployed at sixteen to twenty four age bracket really struggling i mean it's a very bleak picture this being painted for them as the government continues to introduce these spending cuts they'll tell you that really they feel that they're being punished the years and years of government waste and that the debt now is being dumped on them and they're being forced to pay for this with their futures really. so first reporting their let's not get more perspective on this wave of anger that's sweeping the e.u. from lawyer professor of constitutional law george cutting grant to seize joining me live from athens. well we've spoken before and you're a well known skeptic of the eurozone. do you consider then these wide protests throughout europe being a vindication of your views. i think yes well this we have been witnessed of the

same recipe for the last two years all of the always more pain again for the greek people and the peoples of the south and. the expansion of very existence of the people shows clearly that greece is not an exceptional county it is not the great basin of europe this is in a way the mirror of the future of the rest of you look if the european people look at is used to these experiments of nearly but only is just an experiment of the most extreme measures of the taliban's of the markets will governments listen to this resistance. or. i don't think that the actual political system at least in greece is sensitive to the reaction of the people and that's why it is completely discredited if you look at the last polls there to govern in part this that used to cover among them more than eighty five percent of the vote now they

have less than thirty five percent of the people they have expressed themselves in the last polls and they are in a completely divorced from the society and i think this is going to be expressed in the elections that we are going to have in in the early made up like the collapse of a yet another government there in greece. there is a collapse now of the political system a kind of implosion of the political system the problem is that the reaction of the people because not get there slated to a viable political alternative the opposition is fragmented have not yet managed to construct a persuading alternative but i have hope for the future because this movement of the people from below i'm sure that we are going to push in to the political foreground new political powers but you just how serious could these protests become not only in athens and we're seeing pictures of what's happening there at

the moment what's happened in the past but throughout the whole of europe i mean some analysts are talking about revolution is that an exaggeration is that going too far it is an exit is an exaggeration it is not a time of revolution now. we can see a kind of fatigue to the demonstrators here in athens because exactly all these demonstrations over the last months have not the kinds of results that's what i told you the week of a kind of love and the resistance from africa into all four dissociation of the political system from the opinions of the media and the other it's a greek that yet has to be expressed politically the only. said the feeling is that the existing political system cannot any more explicit the will of the people i think that this force all right what about not just expressing the will of the people but we heard from our reporter a little earlier talking about the human cost can you give us an idea of just in what way people really are suffering now in greece and just how sustainable the

suffering can be now just briefly unfortunately of the of the greek society that in most. of it used the minimum salary by twenty percent for most of their workers and that this was not that percent for the younger people it's now fifty percent of the guy get it is unemployed it's just imagine that these are the official date that actually things are much much worse. the public schools. that are going to. obviously. cannot feed themselves so just imagine that we had a kind of. medical for third world ok george just briefly euro zone coming up yet another summit coming up more talk and no action what you expect from it very briefly in that forthcoming euro zone summit me i'm not expecting anything we cover every time that. i have personally essential deserve it always they say that they

have. not done for greece but for europe every time they are repeating this same nearly but experiment george great to talk to you once again thanks your thoughts joining us live there in athens. thank you very much well in the next hour or two you'll be talking to a spanish economist about how close the euro zone's fourth largest economy is to collapse and whether its future lies within the block and in just a few minutes from now here in r.t. anonymous revenge the wave of hackers rests in europe and south america sees a quick response from online activists find out how the tourist group struck back at interpol. and russia's presidential hopeful vladimir putin says the opposition in the country is rocking the boat ahead of the election and called on every political power to be cautious. those stories still to come but first a fugitive russian tycoon and a suspected chechen terrorists both living in the u.k. may be linked to the murder of celebrated russian journalist anna politkovskaya revelation comes from

a former russian police official currently on trial and charged with masterminding the killing of his laura smith reports now in the latest twist in the case. the man who is making these allegations is a man called colonel dmitri. who is charged with organizing the killing of an appellate court hears a former senior police official he is supposed to have planned that killing the people who he say ordered it now are bodies but is the oligarch who is living in london akhmed zakayev who is a suspected terrorist who is also living in london now russia has requested the extradition of these two people on numerous occasions. on charges of terrorism on charges of fraud now that extradition has never been granted by britain and what. this former senior police official is saying is that

politkovskaya who of course was a prominent journalist and it's believed that it was just journalism that in fact in particular revelations of human rights offenses in chechnya what public chunk of his saying is that politkovskaya quarreled with. that is all ski in london and that is what led to that essentially ordering. now lots of people have been arrested for having organized the killing but nobody has so far had the finger pointed at them for ordering it so this could be a key development but certainly particularly for betty is obviously this is not the first time that his name has come up in connection with the murder of public it's come up lots of times before. that the group known simply as anonymous claims to have brought down the international criminal police organizations website crashed shortly after interpol announced the arrest of twenty five has in spain and latin america as a part of the agency's operational mosque. has more now on the latest battle in an

ongoing cyber war. interpol had said the twenty five allegedly members of the anonymous online how king activist group or hacktivist group were taken into their custody right after their own website was attacked now right after the announcement was made their own website again failed to load an act not of us of wrote on their twitter feed not the message interpol adown so there are speculations that this is their response to these reports of arrests and this police action is just the latest in a more in a bigger operation that intergovernmental and police operations hoping to crack down on the activities of a non of us in recent months we've seen a certain bills so call the sofa people and act are all arguing in favor of protecting intellectual property rights however this event made a lot of people angry and polarize opinion saying that passing such bills will actually infringe on that speech as well as the openness of the internet these are

precise precisely the issues that anonymous claims to be fighting for but at the end of the day such arrests again will not stop their activities they repeated several times in the past that no arrests can be made on ideas. so silly that a presidential candidate as well russians of likely provocation by the opposition and the country's political forces to stay calm ahead of the weekend's poll. has the details on what the prime minister has to say. just days remaining before all of russia goes to the polling stations something certainly concerned the prime minister especially given the fact that some forces some political forces in russia have already started preparing for the protest action after the election night even given the fact that the election itself has not happened yet by that i mean the words of one of the key opposition figures of the very popular blog in russia who said openly in an interview to

a russian channel that he supported the ass collation of the conflict that he supported the growth of the protests force that i quote one day people will take to the streets and would not believe the end of the quote also we know that the opposition has been giving out tends to the population that is certainly in some way replicate the scenario of two thousand and four in ukraine the so-called orange revolution and definitely these things warry the prime minister who reflected on that rather a rather stern warning saying that the people these people the opposition would go to any deaths to provoke serious violence to provoke for some serious provocations to happen after the election that is probably they would even regular votes and try to pin that on the authorities they would even go as far as killing somebody as the prime minister said and then try to pin it on the authorities on the ruling on the wrong party and those that power so definitely we're in for some turbulent days

before and after the election and certainly our extensive coverage will be everywhere in moscow in all of russia to bring the latest details to all of us. coming up to twenty six minutes past the hour in the russian capital time now to get the financial news update let's cross to katie she's at the business to spruce european banks have got some support from the regulator what some are we talking about here then katie well they see big. talk about five hundred thirty billion year that's been a lawsuit by the european. said job back in low interest sorry low interest loan interest loans into the blocks banking system now this is actually the second three year long term refinance operation by the e.c.b. the first one took place in late december when banks borrowed almost four hundred ninety billion the extra funds i hope to make banks stronger and encourage them to loan money to businesses and consumers but runoff from the capital believes the

move will give only short term support. you don't solve a problem by increasing levels of. constraints in the money markets and short term funding constraints. address the longer term problem if the economic situation within the eurozone worsens especially for the strong then there's likely that we could see another round of. funding coming back into the markets. let's head to the markets now we get started with the year. they are indeed a lower this hour with lloyds of the u.k. among the firms that disclosed the biggest borrowings the e.c.b. a record low in offering that we were talking about let's see how the us are doing and stocks are in negative territory just by data showing the u.s. economy grew three percent in the final quarter of twenty and levon the russian markets a completely different picture they finished in the black with a presidential election during their experts say withing

a sort of presidential rally drawing foreign investors to the markets this is how the mood is the day i think. there is that income jumped fifty five percent to nine billion dollars last year it was high on all the good news from europe and i got cultural holding. a news ve bank intends to buy a significant stake in the company moving on to the current says now and as you can see exchange rates the euro is low against the dollar so the offer from the e.c.b. on the ruble is losing value against the greenback despite those strong crude prices that have look at crude prices now. as you can see they are indeed. after the weekly u.s. government report showed a higher than expected increase to cruise inventor is that. actually market update for now that thanks very much indeed i'll be back shortly.

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