humanitarian aid to enter the syrian city of homs the government forces push the opposition from their strongholds but locals report the rebels are still in the area and are still kept. in the presidential hopefuls lot of putin says an energized opposition helps the government respond to the public mood but does reject calls for an early parliamentary election. a long delayed deal to make economic discipline compulsory but critics fear that unrealistic expectations for the struggling nations.

global news around the clock this is r.t.d. live from moscow with me roll recent shy syrian government forces have regained control of the district in homs which has been the main center of resistance now for almost a month a rebel say they retreated for tactical purposes he seemed confident they've broken the backbone of what they call terrorist operations. one resident of the perceived city who gave an eyewitness account of what she said were atrocities the rebels committed when they were in control. clashes continue in homes but we're hearing that one of the opposition's main strongholds here in syria is now under the governmental forces control on thursday the rebels withdrew from the city after the

army is offensive to cleanse the rebel held areas humanitarian situation on the ground is really very dramatic infrastructure is badly damaged no water no electricity in the city garbage is everywhere no mobile coverage and load line is also broken after many attempts we've finally been able to talk by phone with homes residents a woman who's identified herself as galina. the south complained revolutionaries are real bandits they can shoot in the back of the queue people. one can be shot for no reason we're afraid to go into the country and our car can be sparked and we can you show on the cue both young and on the people from their homes and chant them and put them in plastic bags and then throw them out she's also said that while retreating from. the area known as baba amr the rebels have moved to another area in the city have media and they've killed many many people there

especially christians. i mean civilians are tired of syrians and want peace and the last question. because syrian soldiers from protect us are being killed every day we've heard that mercenaries from france tunisia. we don't go anywhere and just because we were freed of snipers people like. shortly after the rebels withdraw from the city the syrian main opposition group formed a military council to organize the armed resistance and to provide the rebels with more weapons the fact that shows just how deep the militarized the conflict has become recently here in the country while syria is very very close to a civil war. it is mary from austin reporting what i mean. who just has come by from the homes so she witnessed a scene of chaos and carnage in the war torn city bigger goal of this i want to homes along with the syrian red crescent i spent nine days there and killings and

lunch and opposition forces in places like baba amr on a knot of heavy weaponry we've seen time fighting the army and fighters armed with rocket launches the opposition fans had going for plied with bradman's from lebanon . well meanwhile the syrian authorities have given the international red cross the green light to enter the in battle city of homs now this follows a call from the u.n. security council to allow immediate humanitarian access to the worst affected areas motion supported by russia and china but it's very important as peter was from new york. it's been nearly seven months since we've seen any type of consensus coming out of the security council with respect to syria but that consensus is coming our way through the form of a press statement issued by the security council with respect to humanitarian aid in syria we are seeing some consensus coming from the security council on a humanitarian front but how to end this conflict is where un security council's

remain divided security council members remain divided russia has said and continues to say that there needs to be a cease fire in syria were both sides put their weapons down and begin to engage in dialogue at that point was really underscored by kofi anon you were envoy to syria a newly appointed envoy by the u.n. and the arab league so he of course saying the same thing russia has been saying for months now that both parties participating in the conflict in syria need to now begin engaging in some type of a negotiation we do see that the u.s. and western allies have been pushing for more of a regime change that is a push they need to separate present lucian's that were presented to the security council and of course vetoed by russia and china because russia and china hold the position that the international community cannot just push governments that with

respect to syria the syrians need to decide what will take place in their own sovereign country. to put my reporting there from new york and i mean so i'm a washington that says it will keep up to convince russia and china to put pressure on president. post tough sanctions against the syrian regime james cool with the editor of the independent news website the colbert report it's not developments within syria but rather international politics that will ultimately shape the country's future. as we see there is still a lot of wrangling going on at the international level and the un security council and other united nations organizations and the friends of syria and all these other international organizations that are putting various types of pressure on the syrian government and or the syrian opposition groups and so it's absolutely up in the air at this point and it really depends on the extent to which the international community really wants to continue pressing ahead with the ongoing

and needed support for these supposedly opposition rebels that have supposedly it's gone ten years later isn't in syria but as we now know have been being funded and armed and trained and equipped by the international community for some time now certainly last month there were a number of multiple he confirmed reports from various different news agencies confirming that iraqi officials were admitting that certain along a stablished smuggling routes were being used through iraq to funnel arms and money and even jihad leads to syria to take part in this uprising so once again whether or not the opposition is able to regroup and see which once again take on some other city i think it's really dependent on the extent of the aid that they're going to see if the international community loses stomach for attempting to institute regime change in syria i think will see beyond the end of the year the opposition. we're watching r.t. and still to come for you in the program here new hope for all the hopeful e.u. recognizes as a candidate for membership of the government in belgrade promises

a bright prosperous some say realistic future for the country. called any attempts to arm the syrian opposition unacceptable insisting it would simply undermine peace efforts and the prime minister and a presidential hopeful was speaking with members of the foreign media just ahead of sunday's presidential vote is attitude to domestic opponents and russia's foreign relations were among the issues he faced questions on those details now. of course this was a meeting with. foreign journalists so international affairs were discussed and speaking about syria has called on the international community to crush or this syrian opposition into holding peaceful dialogue with. stressing that seeking sides in this conflict is not a way to resolve it is also said and called on the international community

not to supply weapons to the syrian rebels seeing that this only leads to more bloodshed and sets back any possible peaceful dialogue between the authorities and the opposition they're speaking about the relations with the united states the prime minister has said that the reset has worked economically wise but when it comes to washington's plans for the anti missile defense system in europe the reset this field which is one of the sides wants to become totally invincible but this undermines the strategic balance of forces in the world we feel it's highly dangerous the strategic balance has let us avoid global conflicts since the second world war when a country begins to think it's invincible to retaliate and straight from another country it leads to a lot of conflicts in aggressive behavior and it's not just because. america is an aggressive country because this is the way life is for the presidential polls to take soon as this sunday and for which i'm taking porridge and then actually the

political situation in russia took center stage. for journalists especially in light of the numerous opposition rallies we should been taking place across the country since the parliamentary election in december and why do want to put in said that he's taken more of the opposition's demands on board actually describing the entire protest movement as a positive thing for the country which sort of energizes the authorities also commented on one of the opposition ski demands with just a whole new early parliamentary elections following accusations of fraud during december smalltown the prime minister as completely ruled out holding a new election saying there. is determined strictly by legislation. in the program here on more on the election process in russia.

if. you should. check out the very modern ways of attracting votes with the internet becomes be a win the battle for hearts and minds. with less than two days before the polls open people closer look at what's at stake. the average russian virtuousness such person is relatively up to thirty partly because they think there isn't much of a real choice and secondly because they think that he's going to win organize that he wins whatever the voters do so i think there's going to be probably more even if even if he wins and even if we have even if he wins it's rigged i mean it seems to me that kind of argument caves in on itself erick if i can go to you i mean it's just hard for the outside world to understand the drive i mean everything is research popular. well there's something very embarrassing for the journalists we've heard

a lot in the western press about how it was losing its popularity how all the facebook protests in moscow in the demonstrations meant that the regime was on its way out and of course when the polls which i can't give any numbers on but the polls have certainly shown a very substantial rise and that mr putin is going to sweep to victory in the first round. full of sort of course or coming your way at fifteen thirty g.m.t. . well months of talks confrontations and drama is history as a decision ited you probably signed a watered down fiscal pact the agreement is supposed to enforce tough new budget rules but britain and the czech republic found the idea too much to take. more of the packets future. what's next is that the

a contracting parties will now have to present this treaty to their own parliaments and have it ratified what is needed for this treaty to come into effect or twelve years oh no ratification for it to be implemented on of the contracting parties now twenty five of the twenty seven have a sidebar to this treaty what they are saying that this is a positive political statement that the euro is the currency of the european union of one hand it could be seen as a political statement on the other hand critics will see the two countries that did not want to sign this treaty the u.k. and the czech republic the u.k. has been very critical from the very start and you have our lead to lots of all the referendum of the treaty so a while the leaders here are widely expecting the treaty to be ratified with the question is how smoothly will it go through this process i want to implementation the question is. can this countries actually implemented needed those targets set out by this pact and realistically only germany luxembourg and finland it may meet these targets and the rest are very happy very little room to maneuver so while

leaders here are saying that they're out of a crisis and old really it is very difficult to say that this in fact solves europe's crisis here is more on that. it's been talked about for months as a solution to europe's crisis he's called concord. park a new free school after another two day summit this fiscal stability compact is signed sealed and delivered. most e.u. leaders have agreed to give it the go ahead and it's expected to be ratified by at least twelve euro zone nations this pact comes with tight budgetary rules that must be strictly adhered to or else face automatic sanctions member states must maintain a balanced budget or have a surplus keep a budget deficit of three percent or less and drawing the balanced budget rule international legislation within one year preferred we within the constitution it be. targets are not met the guilty nation could be brought to the european court of

justice and be obliged to make penalty payments the reins of strict budgetary oversight will be in brussels hands we've in europe in brussels we've got our first saw and there's a good start but he's going to police all the bridges all the member states and these member states will lose shudder and see in the field of budgetary policy. what is the population going to accept this. a population that's already been forced to accept one tough austerity measure after another good economy some of that if you are doing if you will you go towards crisis and everybody is no big if we are cutting expenses everywhere then you crush it where nobody's consuming nobody's investment growth is the point of this truth is a continuation of the liberal orthodoxy. so we are exactly going back to what we have done in the last fifteen years. in the us e.u.

readers see the budgetary discipline the school civility pact is expected to bring as a step closer to solving the result structural imbalances and help crisis hit countries ease their way out of their predicament but it's a one size fits all approach that has some worried about the impact it could have on healthier economy has improved to huge fiscal consolidation by us. even those countries that have has your fiscal situation the. course with their fiscal accounts which can depress income because p.t. at a time when banks peace problems and they don't that's what you want to land not a desirable scenario where the new buzzwords are growth and employment class are still your artsy brussels. and the euro zone finance ministers have also once again delayed a greece's second bailout battens must now wait another week pending be approval of describable private investors who have now lost up to seventy percent of their

investments and agree nigel farage m.e.p. leader of the u.k. independence party believes greece is now well and truly on the brink no one doubts that tough decisions need to be taken in greece you know that obvious but you've got to have some stimulus as well and the only way that will happen is by leaving the euro just remember three weeks ago to eighty thousand people storming the barricades of the greek parliament trying to get in we saw five thousand armed police keeping them out we're seeing evidence of this in spain in portugal i mean come on we saw an arab spring last year there's no absolutely no reason why similar things can't happen in southern europe it is difficult enough to stomach tough austerity measures tough government if it's your own elected government but to be dictated to by angela merkel herman bammer employed mr barroso is for millions of people just totally unacceptable it's good to have you with us you're

watching our city now a little more than a decade since nato bombs fell on its cities or serbia has now been given the symbolic title of e.u. member candidate now the largely ceremonial affair is seen as a reward for belgrade's normalizing of relations with the breakaway region of kosovo which the country sees as its own but sure an expert on serbian history says only the e.u. actually benefits from the entire accession process. it will not get any sort of. tricky to advantages and even if it did it doesn't have much of an economy to take advantage of them anymore because over the past four years under a militant the prove you government assuming economy has pretty much been dismantled completely its last has pretty much been forced to surrender its claim to the problems of kosovo that is currently staked out only on paper it is being forced to it basically subordinate its foreign policy to brussels and to a lesser extent washington and now i've heard that there is talk from brussels

about the necessity for serbia to revoke russia's most favored nation status with trade agreements and only songes government supporters which are few and far between actually speak of the event and usually i don't think anybody in serbia honestly expects the problems that result by joining the e.u. especially after seeing their rights and spain and greece and about the euro. twenty minutes past the hour here in moscow and plenty more lined up for you on our web site r.t. thought let's have a quick look now and see what's standing by for you for example the shocking footage of torture being leaked from post gadhafi in libya showing a group of africans locked in a zoo and forced to eat old flags of the country. i know google is at loggerheads with the e.u. the internet giants ability to snoop on users raises fears that prissy is being pushed aside.

in a moment is the world update but for now slogans promises and pledges are the usual attributes of any presidential campaign but this year's race in russia has seen some brand new creative weapons under which the internet has become one of the major battlegrounds but although the content can be scandalous and not entirely innocent. when i looks at the online arsenal. there's been a lot of singing dancing drawing and even cooking this election season as presidential campaigns go it's been hot and created.

which is opposition is a force hard in the online wars from rapping and slating to put in a dead sound them to not so innocent video fakes. charges against put in could embezzle financial fraud and abuse of office. compatibly aggressive anti crowd in complaining that broke out in video skin seem a little too cool it's. making. me love. you if you please. keep our ears. to. the topic of ukraine not paying for russian gas present this video has been made on the kremlin's orders otherwise i don't understand who would be interested in spending

money on this but even for putin is a useless way to go if someone made up their mind to vote for putin carefully won't make them any firmer in their decision on the contrary if they're against putin their free will made them change their mind this prominent journalist and blogger believes it's not only putin losing the war of creativity other candidates look desperate to. avoid the latter insanity as yes. where bush might. see a mole not just only zero zero. not. right now but. this is me who the candidates videos are annoying it seems that they hired the cheapest directors to film this fast food is horrible quality this only proves one thesis about these elections none of the candidates are striving for a victory one is the outspoken leader anyway and the others think of this campaign

as a ritual they have to go through which they don't really want to spend so much money on. so with the real candidates they're only putting in africa supporters or opponents are taking the lead using the internet as a free medium to play politics. however when we go offline grittiest start a site giving way to clear images advantage of camera angles and easily understood slogans a tried and tested method which has badly secured votes but several generations of politicians in this country. if there had been five candidates breathing down each other's necks then every creative video could win votes from the others in our case there is a firm core of put in supporters thirty thirty five percent which is very hard to shake and i cannot imagine what putting all his office could do in the last few days before the election to lose these funny videos won't change anything

a small percentage of undecideds but some are willing to do whatever it takes to win over those voters right to the last minute. despite it's. what had to. happen you are. going to change. good girl. take her away. back to the camera roll. we have sound. good now get the next one in here it's in the batch of on our t.v. . just a moment it's created a business but for now the arts the world and let's start with iran it's now electing members of the country's two hundred ninety seat parliament it's the first nationwide vote since for disputed reelection of president with a majority in june two thousand and nine which sparked massive protests and

accusations of vote rigging the election is widely viewed as a contest between true conservative groups the supporters of the current president and supporters of the supreme leader ayatollah ali khamenei. flooding continues to affect large parts of southeastern australia with fifteen hundred people now forced to leave their homes in the state of victoria the army has been called in to help ferry food water and sandbags to stranded residents but there are warnings that ten rivers in the region could burst their banks in neighboring new south wales people are preparing for the possibility of the heaviest rainfall in over one hundred years. for the stretch of the markets with hello good to see you time to check out how the markets are performing this hour i understand it though the russian markets are fairly fairing rather well for two thousand and twelve yeah you're right roy they are in these and having sold twenty four percent since december which makes it the world's best performing stock market this year the ruble is also closest six

month high but as you can see this hour we're looking at mixed picture the r.c.s. down around half a percent of them i think just in positive territory to see how the institution i mean i getting on russia's international telecoms telecom is among the top performers following news of an acquisition deal as you can see point three percent that i was also got was the trading flat supposed to be to be in negative territory staying with v t v down. at the bank house disclose details of its massive buyback program which starts on the twelfth of march the t.v. may spend up to half a billion dollars to compensate its minority shareholders for losses they suffered after the bank's shares plunged falling is. b.c.p. says the bank's finances will not suffer much from it. nor government money and run the budget money minus for. typical or for. to be

think it's a very small effect it's not some ohms it will point through zero point three fifteen percent of it to be critical it's. it's absolutely needed for flaws a real position of the big. and stay with the markets many alice is saying that we're going to see a rally oh after this weekend the hawks sunshine from i have seen much poll says that although we might see a rally it's not necessarily dependent on who the next president will be. the rally could be quite significant next week but it really diplomas on the global background we see quite a significant rally in the russian market over the last week or two i think it would be a mistake to assume that this rally was seen over the last couple weeks as because of for increasing carbon it's about elections that could be part of it but a significant increase in the world price is also played a very material. and let's get out in the markets we'll see how oil is staring at

a vista our as you can see both light sweet and brands are indeed down this hour in negative territory move on to europe and see how that part of the world is it doing as you can see the foot sea and the dax indeed both scarlett's colors they're both trading in the red and moving on which check out how the u.s. markets closed up yesterday their due to close up in about two hours time as a positive day so no doubt james on the nasdaq a both out there and moving on to see how the exchange rates are getting on the euro is a low against the dollar as traders remain and wary of euro zone weakness out of ruble is makes against the main currencies it's a lower against the greenback and higher there against the european and current state and that's how the markets look for this hour join me in in about thirty five minutes i'll have the latest market figures for you.

we all make choices sometimes it's tough. but it can be an easy. choice left to fate. or it can be. limited. can the cold. shows and. it's always personal. except one day when choice matters to everyone.