serious first steps to democratic reform ridiculed by the us as washington stops just shy of labeling president assad a war criminal on the edge of the pumping weapons into the war torn state. from spain greece the czech republic and belgium and to a sturdy protest to the e.u. governments hack and slash policies leave economies public patients at the point of collapse. charge of the murder of prominent russian journalist anna politkovskaya says the killing made people go straight to london by a fugitive russian businessman and a suspected chechen terrorist our top stories this hour.

international news and comment live from moscow this is r.t. within twenty four hours a day a source in the syrian military says the army is now reestablish control over the battle torn city of homs is 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 have been supplied with french and american weapons and even anti aircraft missiles on the diplomatic front u.s. secretary of state hillary clinton compared syrian leader bashar al assad to a war criminal but stopped short of directly making the accusation and latest rhetoric aims to downplay the reform adopted by syria to make the political process more democratic and give the opposition a voice and as marie financial reports from syria there are fears that outside interference is fueling further bloodshed. but the borders doors and windows to

a state despite international isolation syria's borders have remained opened and easy to pass through and that may have played a crucial role in the militarization of the country's conflict almost immediately after the crisis began here last march they were reports of reference 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 death that's how marshall kind of will pay to smugglers usually iraqi or 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 here with five states a stroll 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 tech corners 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 the offices 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 made little points 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 tire on the cradle of the. syrian uprising it all started here and it continues to play

a role in the country's crisis where what i was doing just several kilometers away from here and numerous reports suggesting that foreign weapons and troops going to is only flow through it that are has become one of the weakest points in the country's security the 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 allegedly 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 responsibility for violence across syria and with so many foreign weapons involved it's clear that the crisis thresh is far beyond these borders or even ocean r.t. reporting from syria. and a member of the syrian social club told me a little earlier that he believes there's a very big difference between what the people of syria see and what the international community sees. we've noticed since the very start of this problem in syria the west in general did not welcome and ridiculed actually every single reformists to the syrian government promised to do or actually took all these steps were either not mentioned at all by the international media or pretty kewl somehow as being either too little too late or not sufficient or you know their credibility

are not ok this is i believe to try to undermine the syrian government's commitment towards reform what the international community needs to understand is what syrians view on the ground is very different apparently from what everybody here is in the in the international media or the mainstream media and in that sense people i wouldn't say totally united behind the current government but they view it as their best option so as not for the country not to collapse 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. it's a day of mass protests across the e.u. with tens of thousands rallying against austerity and economic hardship a correspondent tom bowman reports on the day's events at the epicenter of the euro crisis. 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 walk outs as have many public sector workers local councils were occupied 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 we're talking about a twenty two percent cut in wages across the board in the minimum wage 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 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 withdrawing some of its service is 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 martin erin lawyer and professor of constitutional lord george has told me a little earlier that he thinks what's happening in greece is what's ahead for a europe with no money. more pain again for the greek people and the peoples of the solve and. the expansion of for their existence of the people shows clearly that

the 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 europe if the european peoples do not resist to these experiments of newly belizean we are just an experiment of the most extreme measures of the taliban's of the markets. well the effects of a sturdy ngo already reverberating across the e.u. as europeans march against the cuts in paris five major unions organize a massive march to pressure brussels to tone down its a sturdy stance and instead focus on pro growth policies in the capital prague thousands of students are protesting against long planned but controversial university reforms even the bureaucratic hard into the e.u. thousands gathered to demonstrate against brussels insistence that cuts of the only way to financial recovery and of course more of sarah ferguson madrid with almost. we can probably see thousands of protesters behind me here gathered on the central

square in the trade now they're protesting this evening against the government's need a labor of forms they say that that's going to actually increase unemployment in the short term here in the country now earlier in the day of course we still student protesters mobilize across the country here in madrid they marched down by the education ministry we did see in other parts of the country in barcelona clashes break out between the riot police and some of the protesters there the images of some of the bins that have been set on fire by the protest is extremely concerning it seems that was somewhat a repeat of what we saw last week happening in valencia again riot police clashing with the protesters and that's caused a lot of anger and a lot of condemnation of the police's actions which the protesters say at fourteen heavy handed perhaps a change in approach on police thing with the new government remember the government has only been in power for

a couple of months where we're actually joined by a member of one of the smaller opposition political parties here in the country iraqi thank you very much for joining us the government says that these new labor forms are going to actually increase investment productivity and childes in the long term in the country so while the opposition figures their real thing is that there are. farm they just approve is yes increase the end their fire it's almost free for any company to fart any employee not know mark how long he is being working full of them you don't have to pay any being maybe one month two months of salary it's only two to improve the sound of the companies not the workers that work even worse and worse than these and there are every month more and more unemployed people how can they explain that it makes no sense for thank you very much for joining us it is incredible unemployment figures here in the country at

nearly twenty three percent unemployment as he said only the forty nine percent of youth unemployment here in the country staggeringly high figures and you can see the result behind me on the street to thousands of people taking to the streets to show that discontent so if i threw porting down a little bit later this hour for you all to talk 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 or just a few minutes from now her naughty anonymous revenge wave of hacker arrests in europe and south america she's a quick response from online activists find out how in the tourist groups struck back at interpol. also still to come russia's presidential hopeful britain says the opposition in the country is rocking the boat headed the election and called on every political power to be cautious. a fugitive russian tycoon and a suspected chechen terrorist both living in the u.k. may be linked to the murder of celebrated russian journalist anna politkovskaya the

revelation comes from a former russian police official currently on trial and charged with most demanding the killing your smith reports on the latest twist in the case. the man who is making these allegations is a man called colonel dmitri. who is charged with all denies in the killing of an appellate court he is a former senior police official he is supposed to have planned that killing but the people who he say ordered it now are bodies but it's the oligarch who is living in london akhmed zakayev who is a suspected chechen terrorists 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 of 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 prompted her murder in particular revelations of human rights offenses in chechnya what public jenkins is saying is that politkovskaya quarreled with. his old ski in london and that 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's obviously this is not the first time that his name has come up in connection with the murder of politkovskaya it's come up lots of times before or smith or another new contract the entire course of the trial by logging on to our website on t.v. dot com and here's what all the stories are just a click away for the moment europe's political exodus the e.u.

recalls twenty seven ambassadors from vela reduces the diplomatic fallout between the country and the union grows. and bringing destruction from a bomb so i just want may need to put. checked itself against a giant comet could smash into the planet in the year twenty forty discover the chances of that in our t. dot com. the hacker group known simply as anonymous claims to have brought down the international criminal police organizations website it crashed shortly after interpol announced the arrest of twenty five hackers in spain and latin america as a part of the agency's operation a mosque. cilia has more on the latest battle in an ongoing cyber war. interpol had said the twenty five alleges members of the anonymous online hacking 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 a wrote on their twitter feed not the message interpol down so there are speculations that this is their response to these are 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 a so-called people in the 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 the medium of 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. silly that

north korea says it suspending all nuclear ballistic missile tests pyongyang would also stop you rhenium enrichment and allow u.n. monitors back into the country countries taking the step so it will be in line to receive two hundred forty thousand metric tons of food aid from the u.s. and one got in who's an expert on north korea says the deal will only be a fruit if all sides stick to the agreement. this is not a formal agreement we have here right now this is more in line with what the north koreans like to call words for words and actions for actions so it depends not only on north korea and what they do but it also depends on how the u.s. is going to react in the next period of time and whether or not the six party talks process gets back in on track and what happens in that regard so it sort of the third is out to in addition to north korea the other five

parties also have their part presidential candidate voted me putin has warned russians of likely provocation by the opposition and called on the country's political forces to stay calm ahead of the weekend's poll and i just get the details of what the prime minister had 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 are 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 protest course and 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 in rather a rather stern warning saying that the people these people the opposition would go to any deaths to provoke serious violence to provoke some serious problem to happen after the election that is probably he said he would they would even regular votes and try to be in that only 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 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. time now for some more news in brief for you this wall street protesters are on the move again around

new york where at least two have been arrested as a heavy police presence is a crowd that reportedly picked up about two hundred marched through manhattan to bryant park the really cool shut down the corporations is part of a larger occupy protest planned to take place in more than eighty cities across the country. dozens of protesters from the far right serbian radical party have gathered in belgrade to rally against membership of the european union the demonstrators march to the office of the country's pro euro president boris tadic must stop there by police it comes a day off the e.u. foreign ministers recommended serbia should become a candidate to join up with a party says it's gathered more than two hundred thousand signatures of those opposed to entry. several year that. now back to one of our top stories as greece struggles to comply with creditors demands another indebted member spain is trying to haunt is trying hard to avoid the same scenario next r.t.

correspondent sara firth speaks to a spanish economist about what's ahead for the euro zone's fourth largest economy that saw special interview next and i'll be back with some of our many stories in ten minutes from now. spain has a government that. will. protests and with the country now suffering

crippling the high unemployment especially among the many people are all thinking whether the country often described as t.v. to fail already have we're joined now by economist manuel thank you very much for joining us can you tell us how much of what the country is experiencing right now is due to being a member of the usa the situation that spain is experiencing it's clearly a consequence of spain joining the euro you see the spain joining the euro. we were. subject to the european central bank the european central bank has settled interest rates or courting to the needs of the core europe which is or germany austria the france the netherlands and eats right the right to do that those interest rates were very low for spain they were adequate for most countries part very low for spain so what happened these that we received.

an enormous amount of credit which. increased our spanish debt as particularly. of foreign count the forty forty. so what happened is that these cheap money. which was of course it was of low interest rates. it has created bubbles like the real estate bubble and it has been it has called. an enormous amount maybe five million immigrants working not qualified to be grants working many of them in real estate or of low paid jobs and also that probably could ministrations have been accustomed to receiving. a lot of income because the economy was. working very well and when the crisis started. the real estate bubble.

fell down and of course companies started going back dropped public administration started not receiving income they were accustomed to and the whole the whole economy blew up but we think any government come in the protests have continued what do you think spain's future now holds the government is doing what. you are peace telling them to do cut public spending and make some structural reforms like labor reforms which is ok but that's not going to solve the problem because the problem is the euro and that's not going to solve the problem and so everybody in spain of the world with nice expecting. great expectations that the new government is going to. our range of the problem. i

expect that maybe we have six nine months of good when. after six of my months. if the economy continues to deteriorate as i expect the economy to deteriorate people are going to be very very moved the deceived when they when they see that that with the reality doesn't match their expectations with this government do you think spain's future lies now within the year and certainly not certainly not no nor spain nor portugal nor greece nor eataly whom the the so-called peace i don't know about an island i don't know very much but certainly not spain of course in theory you could have a uterus wrong with the core countries with germany the netherlands. austria maybe but not very sure france. but i am i my feeling is

that if the. peripheral countries abandon the euro i don't think the although four or five or six countries will feel very happy remaining alone where you've written about things exit from the area think do you think that is a realistic option is a political problems the that and it's also is. a credit. debt problem you see. spain has as we said before about. nine nine hundred billion in foreign debt about half of that is held by germany and france maybe banks and funds and investors. so you could see france and germany they don't want spain to default because of course leaving the euro is seen only most of defaulting i mean

because if you leave the euro the fording that you have to you can repeat so if spain leave the euro spain has to default and that we heard german and french banks and they don't want that but the people in greece and in spain being part of the year if there were names very much a source of pride doesn't it you're right you're right you see for use in spain when the euro east associated with europe and of course politicians have conveyed this message they say because well because if you leave the euro you will be chased from the your european union which is forced absence of course the treaties the they don't they don't. consider that the possibility of leaving the euro which is a matter that they don't consider but i'm absolutely certain that if if if if spain leaves the euro nobody's going to chase spain out of the european union thank you

very much for joining us. had been years and tragedy. devotion. and betraying. family. and does a lake. on the bottom of a coffin swamp.

mine in motion would be so much brighter if you knew all about sound from finest impressions. from starts on t.v. don't come.