in the. gunmen launch a deadly attack on an afghan government delegation visiting the site where sixteen civilians were killed by a rampage in u.s. soldier on sunday live analysis on this story very shortly here on r.t. . the u.n. forges ahead in its efforts to mediate peace in syria with russia backing the push for a diplomatic solution. but the syrian opposition admits it's been on from abroad not some continued a cause for military intervention. as the e.u. approves the second bailout to greece to stave off bankruptcy we report on how the

nonstop flow of regulations from brussels is forcing firms out of business while the eurozone crisis rages on our top stories this hour. international news and comment live from moscow with you twenty four hours a day in afghanistan one person has been killed and several others wounded when an afghan government delegation came under attack the officials were meeting villagers who survived sunday's massacre by a u.s. soldier in kandahar province the lone gunman shot dead sixteen people mostly women and children and then turn himself into authorities u.s. is apologize for the incident and the afghan president says it's unfair give up all the unnamed thirty eight year old suspect is in custody and under investigation he's not he's going to reports the patience of the afghan people with their

occupiers is running out. sixteen innocent afghan villagers slaughtered in cold blood nine of them children u.s. officials are going out of their way to present the american surgeon to apparently committed the massacre as just one bad apple that's not who we are as a country. and it does not represent. our military this is not who we are in no way does he represent. the ethics and morality of the american servicemen and servicewomen and i think afghans understand that but afghans don't seem to be find out all. the rage and humiliation felt by afghan people appear to be way beyond what apologies can make up for they've heard them all before in the last few months all too often and each one very similar to the next just weeks ago the white house apologized for the burning of the copies of the

koran by u.s. troops an incident that triggered a surge of violence this was a deeply unfortunate incident that does not reflect the great respect our military has for the religious practices of the afghan people and weeks before that in january apologies again over footage showing u.s. marines urinating on dead afghans but these actions do not represent the values of the vast majority of coalition forces of the nations honorably contrary to what u.s. officials say some analysts believe that those incidents are symptomatic of how the military operation in afghanistan works it is increasingly the case that this is looking like a brutal occupation which is killing laws on provide. afghans film cells humiliated insulted instance like this will be regarded as symbolic of exactly what is wrong with the american occupation it is an absolutely cynical operation to say that they can't eat the food in afghanistan for another free how many more people will die

how many more instances like this the only solution to this is to bring the troops out and then for these for these governments the stockmen's of painting in countries where they have absolutely no rights when the copious apologists handed out by the administration don't seem even to appease war critics back home let alone the afghan people but what about the whole idea of invading a country occupying a country. disturbing their country creating hundreds of thousands of refugees and suffering this it ever get to a point where apologizing about the qur'an is rather minor to some of the other problems that we have created the taliban has vowed it will take revenge and analysts expect a fresh surge of violence children shot in the head women slaughtered it's incidents like the latest soldier's rampage in afghanistan that it's free mr used to it new people to their ranks those new recruits go out to kill not even the most

heartfelt apologies can change the minds of people on revenge it becomes a vicious circle that breeds even more danger spreading far beyond the borders of afghanistan i'm going to check our reporting from washington. the british prime minister david cameron is in the u.s. to meet president obama to talk about afghanistan and to take time out to play some basketball both men earlier stressed they're satisfied with corporation and progress in the military campaign let's get some reaction now from london based investigators where the meeting is being planned for some time but takes place just days after this massacre by an american soldier what influence will that have over there get together. well i mean it would be great to be a fly on the wall but i suspect. that they will be trying to manage what i think is going to describe as a moral collapse of the of the occupation we have to remember that. who opposed the war in iraq the afghan war was the good war so this latest incident following

the burning of the korans that happened quite recently we just feel that the whole kind of moral case for the war has collapsed so i suspect they'll be trying to find brave words to cover what i think is quite a disastrous situation for a moral collapse perhaps not leading to them trying to find brave words but also maybe a hasty exit some are saying this could be an excuse for them to leave even quicker than they'd already planned but i mean i think that they've been trying to tiptoe away from the afghan war for a while i mean. remember you know it's over ten years now and we've heard so many promises so many like to the end of the tunnel and so on the surge is diplomatic surge is troop surge is all these things have failed and you just feel that there was a this account just to really quietly maybe if we just leave without making much noise people will forget that we were here but. incidents like this that i think i've just blown that completely you're there in london just last week six british

soldiers were killed bringing the death toll of u.k. personnel to what over four hundred now are the british public tired of this war and with the u.k. public finances in a pretty stable stomach is there for this military campaign. well i think it's been going for. the support for the wars been draining away for quite a while now and. the tragic death really of the young soldiers many of whom would have been barely out of preachers when this war began i think it was just that feeling that what i think you raise in people in the general public's mind is is it was this ever worth it what more can we do this is you know where we're sending our young sons to die. for what and so all these questions are being thrown up and you really get the sense that that all kind of sympathetic moral public support has drained away from this war and you know both the u.s. and britain are really in a very very difficult position now how do they leave while claiming some kind of

victory and what is victory this is no longer there's no longer even raise and if they do leave what happens after that with the afghan authorities be able to create any stability there. this is the unknown question i mean that history has shown two things i think the first thing is every single army since alexander the great has failed to conquer afghanistan and i think the second thing is is that you know all the years of wars and occupation interference and so on have made has made afghans an extraordinarily fragile society i suspect will be a very difficult period after after this occupation but in the sense it has to be up to the afghans they have to go through the process that allows into poor country go their own and have some kind of common purpose for them they can't do that well you know you mention a bit of earlier what was it all worth it the coalition invaded to oust the taliban but now it seems we're going to get talks peace talks with a group they the allies have proposed so some may say at this is actually been

a total waste of time and lives because those peace talks could have happened ten years ago or has there not been some benefit we are seeing are we not a democratic afghanistan with the elections there. yes but is this a real regime what legitimacy it has and so on i mean this is questions i can't answer this is for the afghan people. to answer but the truth is that you know the taliban emerged out of a period of civil war of quite quite a difficult time they were attempting to pull the country together however much we might disagree with them and so on they represented something real inside of afghanistan and the original. the reason they went in was to destroy al qaida and to get some of it was across the border in pakistan so then it became a war against the taliban and then a war against the afghan people and so now at the end of all this horrific process we turn to the point to say well i actually need to sit down and talk to the other about the taliban these are not foreigners these are afghans and they represent

something inside the country in the end the truth is that they are going to have to be the masters of their own fate you and i are talking at the moment well david cameron now is due to meet president obama i mentioned at the start and according to press reports that we're going to be playing basketball together a little later is this appropriate do you think given the weekend's events and what they're talking about. i think the imagery and politics sometimes come. can be so ironic and so unnecessary because of everything that's going on in afghanistan this idea that everything is normal and these are a couple of guys sitting back a few beers and throwing a few hoops or whatever it is is they do i just think it's an appropriate it's inappropriate because. there isn't a disaster unfolding and in fact i'm what they should be doing is for once being honest both the british public and the with the afghan public and the u.s. public about that this war was disaster and it was not to the disaster i think by many people from from its very beginning so i mean thanks very much for your time

some of us have joining us live there from london. as the international community remains at loggerheads over a solution to syria russia is bolstering its push for peace moscow wants a cease fire without preconditions and is indorsing the joint un arab league precept by kofi annan when we were told the rascasse is going ahead with more democratic reforms with parliamentary elections now jus in may. we continue to hear reports of spiraling violence with new reports of dozens of people being killed on both sides we're hearing from the leaders of the syrian opposition saying that they have been promised weapons from abroad but they are still calling for a political and diplomatic solution the russian foreign minister sergei lavrov has expressed his concern that these weapons could end up in the hands of al-qaeda is also said that calls from qatar for some kind of military intervention and so far

all attempts to reach some kind of cease fire have proven to amount to nothing on monday yesterday the united nations security council met and there moscow expressed grave concern and said that it was of most importance that a cease fire is reached immediately now the former head of the united nations kofi annan was in syria over this weekend where he did meet with the syrian president bashar assad to try and map out some kind of agreement and we've heard from the man that he has reportedly put forward concrete proposals on the table at the same time the russian foreign minister sergei lavrov has urged and that this proposal lead to something he has court for the bloodshed to end immediately but he has said that he needs to be a pragmatic approach it's take a listen the people who are fighting in syria against the governed. among them you have this free syrian army there are reports that some groups of the

are and they do have arms of their parents so if that is to say that acid is responsible for every sing therefore he must just make a decision is made. something which catches the eye of the people who watch t.v. but if this is your ego is not about treating such public opinion but is a boat stopping the bloodshed then we must be a bit more pragmatic there is largely a media blackout in syria which means it's very difficult to know what's happening there a difficult to confirm sources we've been following up a report with the whole office or three members of the they wus off as about a zero who have resigned over what they say is unfair biased and propaganda live reporting particularly over events in syria and this is just one example that shows just how big and how difficult to manage this information war is. zero setting.

setting the news agenda being set bias a channel once held it is a mouthpiece of freedom and change is fast becoming an instrument of political pressure and propaganda that's been ongoing since last april when you know of two thousand and eleven their senior people were for the know the head of the church of the bureau and bring many other people quit because of the biased coverage and and out right into the government in declaring a literal power over libya and now syria when he quit a year ago the head of the bureau said the channel had abandoned professional and objective of porting claiming it has become an operation room for incitement and mobilization and i. believe that al-jazeera and other channels were not balanced in dealing with events all are responsible for instance with respect to the events in syria in bahrain we started to invite guests from america who only criticize the

regime in syria and support the regime in bahrain and persons who justify nato intervention this is unacceptable. set up fifteen years ago al-jazeera is owned by the state of qatar its english language spin off and launched in november two thousand and six theory in the channel when it was set up was always intended to be a much softer version of the arabic trammell of the channel i think it was largely set out to please. and its coverage show very clearly there were a few critical program stumpage where rico does iraq but it seems now both are working in tandem the channel is seen as widely influential in the middle east watched by some sixty million people it's been boid by the recent i would appoint zings but critics claim it's increasingly become a tool of khatami and western policies and. it's very disturbing to hear al-jazeera

is now becoming this regional player for a foreign policy. in a way that some would arguably say the b.b.c. and others have been for decades where it is or arabic is covered the story of syria is completely one sided. a chargeback type by another al-jazeera staff a complaint by e-mail that his bosses refused to publish pictures of armed fighters clashing with the syrian army the formal jazeera beirut correspondent said the channel also ignored if arindam on a new constitution in syria as for libya leaked reports suggests that some of the channels coverage and set up some tripoli were fake last year the channel was miraculously granted access to the american media market after initially being banned in the united states word is that american officials saw how influential al-jazeera was in covering the arab spring but it's raised a number of our brows and given weight to those critics who say the channels changed its tune taking the question whether al-jazeera is once really lucian every

voice has been drowned out by and louder noise the agenda of its sponsors r.t. contacted al-jazeera as head office but the channel was unavailable for comment policy or r.t. tell of. egypt's lower house of parliament as overwhelmingly voted to expel israel's ambassador incur and to stop gas exports to the country it's also called on the egyptian government to revise all its relations and agreements with israel referring to it as an enemy that's now cross to tel aviv and talk more on this with a recent post journalist yacov lap and what impact will this vote have for relations between the neighboring states. well i think there's two things that we should keep in mind first of all this vote should be seen i think as a road sign in terms of how the future of relations between israel and egypt will play out the more islamists take power in egypt the worse relations will get

between the two countries because islamists have never had an interest in peace and fruitful cooperation with israel they've only been interested in damaging israel and actually seeking its destruction in their overall ideology so it's clear and obvious that the more power islam this in egypt gets the worse relations are going to get and the more hostility when israel will be receiving from egypt but at the same time i think that this vote is also saying something about what's happening inside of egypt because there are two voices egypt is speaking to us with two faces right now on the one hand you have this growing islamist political representation which is causing relations to deteriorate but on the other hand you have the old guard the military the ruling military council which still has control of all the important decisions it means that is filled by the way symbolic it's nothing practical is going to happen as a result of it and this military council is interested in keeping relations with israel as they are good fruitful relations so we're seeing

a clash between these two approaches and these two entities within egypt you say symbolic but the underlying sentiment as you say clearly makes it very uncomfortable for israel you talked about the egyptians that's what about israel we haven't had a response we didn't respond. no i don't think it will because i think that the government has taken a decision that any response will only further deteriorate things so they've decided to not respond to it keep comments to it at a minimal but they're under no illusion i think that the relationship with egypt is in serious jeopardy because as i've said the islamists have a clear ideological interest in deteriorating relations and i think it's you know also you have to go ahead with very quickly what i'm going to want to talk about you say could be in jeopardy but at the same time we're seeing cooperation in egyptian intelligence officers have just broken today's peace between israel and palestinian militants over the recent escalation of violence there i mean it doesn't seem to make sense does it. well that's exactly what i'm saying there are

two entities egypt now has two heads it does not have one government it has the old guard which is the military council the ruling military council these are the people who helped broker this ceasefire between islamic jihad and other terrorist organizations in israel these are the people interested in stability in keeping the region on a foot path to stability and on the other side you have the islamists and these are dangerous ideological elements that are interested in destabilizing the good relations that exist and that's why we're seeing these contradictory messages coming from cairo right now i'm very briefly the west thought it was to create a safe from italy supporting the arab spring how does israel feel now as a result of all of that very very briefly. israel from the beginning thought that making a huge transition from a dictatorial system to a democracy is a path that strewn with danger and it preferred a gradual i think

a gradual process and now we've seen that if you suddenly lift the lid off a society in a country in which its limits have been operating for decades and the islamists are going to come to power it doesn't spell good news i think for the short term yeah thanks so much for your thoughts in joining us there from the recent post newspaper . pleasure the fitch ratings agency has upgraded greece from restricted default to be after the country carried out the biggest write off in history with its private creditors it follows e.u. approval from a hundred thirty billion euro dig out for greece saving it from going past the u.k. independence party european parliament member paul nuttall has told me that southern european countries would be better to set sail alone greece and serious trouble i mean you just got to look at the amount of people who are out on the streets demonstrating at the moment suicide rates are up to minimum wage has been caught there's not homelessness in the country at the moment and all the european union is doing. is it's encouraging the cradle of civilization to head towards

revolution because that's what will happen if we continue with these austerity measures there's only one answer nothing comes out of the all together to try. to value sets its own exchange rate at a competitive level get this exports moving the idea that greece spain portugal all these mediterranean countries could exist within the same eurozone as a country like germany was completely facile from the start. we said it we predicted this it was impossible erica where so the only way that this thing can move on is for probably the nordic countries the form their own euro zone and for the sort of countries to fall out altogether to go back home to their own couldn't these. in crisis it's spain the euro dream is fast becoming a nightmare as madrid says it can't be the story target set by the libyan huge protests against cuts in new labor laws which opponents say will make it easier for workers to be fired in a country where unemployment rates are among europe's highest and a financial crisis isn't stopping more regulations and red tape from brussels leaving some businesses as our correspondent cilia reports. there's much

ado about these feather creatures. on january first of this year the european commission's welfare of laying hens directive that the use of battery cages like this and now requires at least seven hundred fifty square centimeters of cage per head. and. they look at it and i'll do the investment to make them say no thank you i will not work they're still my life and great i think. so and it's medium small and stopped completely and produces apes. they're going to be taken over by the bigger ones and then welcome scenario and already crisis hit e.u. countries but michelle is one of the lucky ones he shelled out more than three million euros to build the new cages i thought it was i was i'm not i.

think was around however the r.c.c. was. actually i was. they also now have to be trained to lay eggs in a special nest which isn't exactly easy plughole creators love this part of the. work really bringing it up more. but the issues extend beyond these cages cake manufacturers in france for example have called for urgent help after several farms were forced to stop egg production for failing to comply with the rules and that drove prices up by as much as seventy five percent in just four months in the union say prices of more than tripled since january a level not seen since the two thousand and three avian flu outbreak and while there's all the ruckus about having to follow new rules in fact farms and thirteen

countries including belgium and france still haven't complied the e.u. commission has launched infringement procedures against the states which could go all the way to the european court of justice if needed the fact that we have taken the procedure is a clear sign of the commission will not back down in the meantime these cheaper illegal eggs could still make their way on to the market much to the dismay of more ability and member states in our country they spend four hundred million pounds over a money getting there that she. students legal and of course they get very very worried when they look for solutions and they see poker with each fifty million birds still in the old illegal bank tree cage would never predict prospect of them coming out that is what british producers are so obsessed with that people pay used to disobey the law. a law that has ruffled a more than a few feathers in the industry but at least some can go about their business

slightly happier. this or cilia artsy brussels. time now to check out what's going on in the world the business to be trees keeping an eye on all the latest for us so dimitri the world's largest and a mini a minor chairman well victor back so better to said he's resigning from the post of chairman of roussel because of the differences between him and the management of the company which has as he says led to the company being in a crisis situation meanwhile roussel says the vaccine veges been ignoring his obligations as the company's chairman for more than a year now and analysts say that said another sticking points between the back and the company's main person c.e.o. exiting pasco and that includes the management of for the stake in north cynical twenty five percent stake in a very valuable asset and also the company's dividend policy and also on the say

that the effect on the company's operations will be short. i believe the situation has come about because of the disagreements escalating between mr hubbard and mr de pasco. we don't believe that the result is in a crisis situation. that is very manageable it's what position illumina markets so there is no crisis situation here in the us and we believe in finally short term of this and this will put some pressure on the share prices have a longer term depending on who is elected the new chairman of the board it could be positive for the share price. well it has already had taken its toll on the share prices take a look at what was going on the markets while the r.t.s. and m i six were in positive territory gaining around one percent and half a percent respectively we take a look at bruce our shares you'll see that there were down three point four percent

the outsiders of the day carly also was down around four percent at the end of the day fertilizer producer announced it was reducing production by around forty percent beautiful tree demand and burbank was one of the biggest gainers the largest banks in russia get around one harvest. if we look at other markets in the u.s. it's all very rosy of the fed chairman bernanke he has said that these quite positive on the economy that the inflation spike that we've seen recently is temporary and that rates will be kept at record low levels of zero to nor to five percent in europe but also they ended on a positive note meanwhile after the end of the session the fitch has said that it is increasing the rating of greece from default to be minus and on the commodities markets we're seeing oil gearing up on hopes of the global economy growth and what we're seeing on the currency market is the dollar is

gaining versus the euro on the positive retail sales in the united states and of course this positive outlook from fed chairman ben bernanke while the ruble was also gaining against the. right answer for today join business here at eight twenty moscow time on words. the. guitar some measures your story and it seems so far away you think you understand it and then you glimpse some.