gathering the strike tens of thousands in spain unite in protest against labor of forms a day before the new prime minister announces a fresh round of austerity measures. the arab league split over how to deal with the syrian crisis some members advocate diplomacy others want to arm the rebels and weigh in with force. the five member bloc of brics nations take on the dollar and the euro and you need to reform the global economy by creating an alternative to the international monetary fund.

ten am in moscow i matter as a good to have you with us here on our team our top story tens of thousands across spain are gathering for a general strike protesting against new labor reforms it's the first real test for the new prime minister mariano rajoy who's government's only been in office for three months the strike comes a day before he's expected to announce more painful austerity measures could greaves has more from madrid. this is just a precursor of what we're expecting to see taking place later on thursday when tens of thousands of people thought to be descending on this where essentially were to bridge nation action the story read the cases across the. country all parts of the channel sure right now there is so little to transport links so we could fly these and go oh yes they all the prince who complains of the risk of

a label or something and said by the government they think they support the boy they don't really protect the rights of the work of them enough people to be sat down to reason and have their wages simply lowered all this in the face of striking unemployment that was twenty three percent of the calculations done leaving out the flaws that was the way i was taught the band of countries and when you put this in context of those under the age of thirty c. even the worst thing about fifty percent of that book section now there have been other protests taking place throughout the course of the year we saw a problem want to balance the home to see between police and demonstrators says the police were accused of being heavy handed insurgent circumstances food tension is expected to again be on friday that's when the country's prime minister to

pass another budget this time again a high cost single however since he's already stretched to be very very severe possibly alarming so many of the public also the tension being cross still staying busy putting in prime minister said the spanish condition is something that could infect the rest of the eurozone over this coming on the banks of the bank of spain have now seen the country percentages in recession. well stay with us as we bring you up to the minute coverage of the spanish strike throughout the day and for more news and videos you can always head over to our web site r t v dot com here's what's a click away right now. panic for petrol u.k. drivers at the pumps after being warned of a possible fuel tanker strike. facebook faceoff has some u.s. employers asked people to hand over their social network passwords one applying for a job.

as the conflict in syria rages despite a un backed peace plan the arab league is meeting to decide how to mediate a solution but not all of its members are committed to diplomacy with some openly calling for military action to mask it says it won't accept anything the league says after the body suspended syria's membership last year. it is the first time that the arab league son has been held in iraq to teach decades and it's expected that the arab league ministers who are gathered there are going to be inducing kafeel and six point peace plan that of course has already been formally accepted now by the syrian government now that's understandably been met with some criticism from members of the opposition he say that he's made promises before that

he's felt the liberal so certainly the message coming from the opposition is that they're going to be looking for actions and not just words when it comes to. the meeting in baghdad at the moment say far has not been seen as having started particularly play he said lay son of the country's guitar in egypt haven't sent their top diplomats t. that gathering possibly. in part perhaps to the fact that there is a difference of opinion of course remember amongst many of the countries participating in that arab league summit you've got countries like it's are he very much been pushing for arming the syrian opposition and calling for arab chiefs to be sent in to intervene in syria iraq's foreign minister has said that the country doesn't support foreign military intervention in the country but they are behind the syrian object is and the bit of the people in syria calling for freedom when we

talk about the syrian opposition you've got the syrian national council which is the sort of outside body in the scene for they very much try to pitch themselves as exile government in waiting in much the same way libya's n.c.c. operates is that the reality is that it's been a very different situation for them inside the country you've got different opposition factions you've got the free syrian army of course operating inside syria and say one of the main criticisms leveled at the syrian national council is that they're simply not representative we've heard ok theon and calling for these countries. now in these different factions to be speaking with one voice and unfortunately it does seem that there's still a lot of in decisiveness and a lot of bickering that is going on there everyone's very much on the same page when it comes to putting an end to the violence there's just no one really thinks to bt sure how they go about stopping it. the world economies five leading challengers are banking on serious change the brics group of countries want to

create a new development fund as an alternative to what they consider a western run i.m.f. and world bank they're aiming to break the spell of the dollar and euro is the main reserve currencies are he's pretty has more from hugo. today is the main day of the fourth annual bricks on the leaders from the world's top emerging economies will russia india china and south africa are here in new delhi to discuss their strategic partnership together in these five countries account for forty percent of the world's population and actually are expected to make up almost half of the global g.d.p. in the next eight years by twenty twenty many analysts are predicting that because of these countries growing economies they're actually going to have more clout in the political realm as well not we're seeing many of these countries russia and china for example standing up to the last three months freeze on major issues that are going on in the world like syria we're also seeing the issue of her run

anywhere it's countries are standing up on that issue as well we want india china and russia that are saying that the western sanctions on iran are not going to work earlier this year the brics countries were also talking about bailing out europe from their financial crisis one of the top things that said to be discussed here at the fourth annual great summit of is the possibility of a joint break being that could serve as some sort of alternative to western allied financial institutions like the international monetary fund and the world bank these leaders will also expected to discuss an alternative to the dollar as the global reserve currency and perhaps some sort of reckless basket courtesy of the brics countries will be signing an agreement today to give loans in their national currency another move that these countries are coming together to show their economic clout and this would be

a major shift in the way that all the economics work out after all the documents are stuck. in their statements of the brics summit will conclude and the russian president dmitry medvedev is expected to hold a bilateral meeting with india's prime minister manmohan singh like everything from stuff here in new delhi. chuang sweet scene from the peking university says diversity of the brics countries makes for a win win relationship between them and the global economy right now it's much too reliant on the american and european european markets and as we all know. american in europe and europe are right now or are smart arse first luggers so china for its long term economic interest is very interested in markets around the world as well as diversifying its manufacturing sector and you know the appeal of russia is obvious russia is as old as the land. well in china it's very much in

need of both of resources the appeal of south africa is that's a marker is really much the financial center of africa so it was provided you point for chinese going to peace to the rest of africa seems the same as true for brazil . so polo is really in many ways the furniture capital of most of america so it's not that china is thicker our house it's down to each of these countries to benefit from. usually been through three straight immigration we have from we have everyone . us has suspended food aid to north korea for the country refused to cancel a scheduled rocket launch washington says this breaks the deal with north within which north korea agreed to suspend uranium enrichment and its nuclear missile tests in exchange for humanitarian support yang says the launch is just intended to send a satellite to space for some insight on this i'm joined by james corbett editor of a court reporter joining us from osaka japan so with this food assistance on hold

how are the north korean government feed its. well that i think is the real crux of this issue because of course it's been portrayed as nothing more than u.s. policy to try to get the north korean government to change its policies but what the real question is how this is going to filter down to the level of people and i think really ultimately the only effect that this will have is to make the people of north korea even more dependent on pyongyang and central power and put a hold over the food supply and further drive north korea to other sources of food a little suitably of course china obviously a rival for u.s. power and influence in the region so i think this is a clear example of the u.s. shooting shooting itself in the foot if it is indeed attempting to really change the power structure of north korean society through movement that is now north korea having this sort of i believe it's from the juicy idea this idea of independence from the outside world so what does this initial acceptance of

humanitarian food aid from the us tell us about the situation in the country well the situation there is horrendous from all accounts and there have been rumors. of cannibalism going on in north korea because of the content immense nature of the starvation going on there and unfortunately sadly all those reports were confirmed and it's fears were confirmed in the police documents from inside north korea last year which provided case examples of some of those accounts of cannibalism of course not everyone is living in quite that squalid condition but it does go to show that there are some extremely dire examples of starvation going on there and the people are very much dependent on this type of food aid so any idea that north korea really can function in some sort of isolated community in an international stage is i think just absolutely pinus i think and now the north insists that this satellite launch which is scheduled from april is for scientific purposes and that it in fact was to estimate crop production there if you think washington should in

this case have given pyongyang the benefit of the doubt. well that assumes that washington is even being straightforward in what it's really attempting to do with its latest new verb and i think really it's important for people to understand the ideological pedigree of this idea that food aid can be used as that such tool of geopolitics and that really goes back to a document called the national security study memorandum two hundred which is candidly probably nine hundred seventy four henry kissinger who at the time was opining that. overpopulation in third world countries was the single greatest threats to american national security interests and because of that we had to start asking the questions of whether food aid could be used as a tool or an instrument of national power that's almost a direct quote from the document itself and i think that idea has lingered for decades and so as this tool of so-called real politic which is really just really a mask for he had. the ability to use this food aid as

a geopolitical weapon and i think if the u.s. was serious about actually challenging north korea and of course its ongoing nuclear program developments they'd be looking into such things as. the european energy giant which concluded a two hundred million dollar contract back in two thousand to provide light water reactors to north korea which formed part of the basis of their nuclear program but of course that won't happen because one of the board members of a.b.b. during that time was former u.s. defense secretary donald rumsfeld. the agreement between the u.s. and north korea was a reach last month why do you think north korea has broken the conditions of this deal so soon after agreeing to it and it must have known that such a move would provoke a strong reaction from washington. it could be the case of them testing the waters and seeing how far they can go with these agreements and certainly anyone who's been watching the situation in north korea for the last several years knows that north korea cannot be predicted and and all of them seem to be in

a not in favor of their own country. country's interests but in same a certain way it does play into the i think that it's not a strategy of pyongyang which is to try to centralize more and more power in pyongyang and in king jong un and and that works to see the benefit on the more that the people are relying on pyongyang for their food aid the more centralized control they have over the country. all right what do you see in general for the future of the relationship between washington and pyongyang i think that's very much open to to speculation at the moment and it really does depend on the next moves as i say killing and what's coming out of there is just so unpredictable of the moment that i don't think we can really put a definite figure on that but i think there there must be some sort of maneuver here obviously coming during the nuclear security summit taking place in south korea i think the timing of all of this since it is extremely interesting to watch and again it might be north korea trying to draw more attention to itself as

a player on the international political stage as it is being increasingly we collected for the sprit sumit threat of iran's nuclear program so it might even be a type of bargaining chip to get washington more ground into the region and more back at the table in terms of coming to some sort of agreement a broader agreement with north korea all right james credit editor of a corporate report live for us on osaka japan thank you thank you. delegation of west african army chiefs have arrived in mali's capital but nako was part of an attempt to restore order after last week's coup this is the toppled president i'm going to toumani toure he says he is safe and still in the country several thousand people took to the streets of a moscow in support of the military takeover led by soldiers unhappy with the president's policy the self declared leaders of which you have already unveiled a new constitution promising greater public freedoms actions have been condemned by . suspension from an influential west african regional body lawrence freeman from

the executive intelligence review things that the rebellion could be the result of a failure of western policies in the region mali this was an area that us put a lot of military backing into and they were trying to fight the various forces no one is al-qaeda in the grid and you had a military low level officer carry out a coup so you have to wonder how strong was the government this is the continuation of the arab spring into sub-saharan africa one factor though is in the zealous nature of president obama and president sarkozy and prime minister cameron and their intent to carry out regime change in libya and kill gadhafi and it was not necessary they had to actually help this process because many of these rebels are coming back from libya very well armed with pickup trucks with machine guns and other ammunition so essentially it's the failed want policy president obama in the

west together with the economic crisis that i think of it can mean causes for this rebellion. let's turn now to some other stories making headlines across the globe six i've been killed in two attacks in the southwest pakistan the first happened in the mattson district when gunmen shot dead a u.n. employee and his driver another u.n. worker was wounded government on motorcycles also opened fire on a passenger van in quetta killing four shiite muslims and what appeared to be a sectarian attack. international monetary fund chief dominique strauss kahn claims he has diplomatic immunity it is a civil case in which he's accused of sexually assaulting a hotel maid last year the i.m.f. says he's not all titles that he's not entitle to the immunity because he was in new york on personal business at the time of the alleged crime strauss kahn also under investigation in france over allegations of involvement in a prostitution ring. u.s. authorities are charged the u.s.

pilot with interfering with a flight crew after his behavior became increasingly erratic nala board play hours been the last vegas bound flight made an emergency landing in texas tuesday after he allegedly shouted bombs from iraq we're going to take down the plane he could face up to twenty years in prison and two hundred fifty thousand dollars fine if found guilty he's currently being held at a texas hospital undergoing medical evaluation. check out this dramatic video from ireland that's a two and a half ton elephant named baby you're looking out there who had escaped from a circus in the town of blackpool the forty year old popular moroccan through a car before charging a busy junction toward a shopping center maybe as handlers so she ran away because she didn't want to take a shower she was brought under control and returned to the circus shortly.

speaking of republicans. speaking of elephants elephants republicans party symbol you got it right republican candidates in the us continue battling it out in the primaries across the country in hopes of challenging democratic president obama for the top job recent gallup polls suggest a americans are not satisfied with having the only two choices with around forty percent calling themselves independents so he's got a chicky on reports most u.s. citizens think the bipartisan system could be updated. in american politics three is a crowd through a string of primaries two parties present their candidates for the president of the united states americans are accustomed to happen to teams they watch football games baseball games and basketball where there's one team against the other team that's kind of the way they see politics as well i think it affects their thinking they think there's only two choices republicans and democrats they just grown accustomed to that twenty mentality. but according to a gallup poll

a record number of americans forty percent now identify themselves as political independence there are many people who have expressed dissatisfaction with the current system but they seem resigned to the notion that those people who are currently in positions of power or not won't want any sort of change and that we're not likely to see change anytime soon for an independent or third party candidate getting on a general election ballot is considered a doomed task in the us ralph nader an independent a renowned lawyer consumer rights advocate ran for the presidency six times harder to get on the ballot in this country by far than any western democracy fifty different state laws hundreds of different county laws and it's a total nightmare created by the two parties to go forward competition this miscue two party a what we call the police and they're all fighting for osha slowly over

who's going to go to the white house so they can pick up presidents and to take the orders from their corporate criminals some analysts say the system works in a way to avoid any real change in the way america's governed and special interests play special role the extended primary process we have in the u.s. just special interests like. military contractors. for others it gives them time to monitor the election process and put in resources to attack anyone who's not going to use is not going to give so shit or say rules favorable to them so it does make it hard for an outsider to surprised establishment some believe congressman ron paul who would fare better as an independent as his distinctly anti-war rhetoric this tenses him from the other republican front runners political experts say someone like paul stands no chance of winning the nomination because at the end of

the day the two parties always though they were mainstream candidate they. presented with just two choices many americans vote not for who they see as president but against the one they don't like a lot of people don't necessarily vote for who they like a lot of people so republican because they don't like the democrats or don't so democrat because they don't like or they're scared of the republican us a lot of times you have americans voting for the lesser of two evils who's the lesser of two bads many see the way candidates are paid to play legalizes and safeguard against drastic change but as that this content among americans grows over the country's foreign policy over corporate controlled economy so grows the push for fresh ideas and bold actions but the question is will the system allow in those who could break the michael log then much cherished business as usual washington mold i'm going to check our reporting from washington our kate. and

coming up in our sports but in an exclusive with russia's only one dr. jalili fire truck shares his thoughts on race in the future of the most popular abetted of our sports coming your way in about twenty minutes. but it's time now for the business news with marina and the russian markets now open is it a positive start for the training session tell us. of all unfortunately it's. oppose the start of the trading session the russian markets have failed to raise their losses from wednesday let's not forget that yesterday we saw the my side stops in its lowest level since late january and right now the latest figures show us up here at c.s. is down almost twenty percent this hour. is that around half of our side like sound i'll have a breakdown of the main movers on the my six for you but for now let's move on to some local companies the ports of the router down in the netherlands and russia's

investment group holding suma which i think you know building up ports in china together the country is currently looking for partners to settle in a production territory that's next to beijing and the companies promise to give a final answer by summer and their rest investment would be two billion dollars. and after years of claim back and forth bulgaria has decided to abandon the construction of a nuclear power plant in the country the project was being developed by russia since the one nine hundred eighty s. says the project which is worth around six point three billion euros is simply too expensive for its economy they have already spent a significant amount of money on it after getting a loan from a french bank and now there are plans to set up a cheaper thermal power station instead. now let's mall and check out some ensor national markets that asia is the only one trading right now and we see that it's a sea of red there as well and basically commodity forums are under pressure and

that's all and a sell off from metals and oil overnight in new york in the hong kong be a move in incorporation of china is setting around supercenters and the stronger yang this side is dragging japanese exports down as well so only is losing around super side as well but on the positive side we have news that japan's forever retail sales rose around three and a half percent which was much more than x. the go over to the u.s. markets there are closed but what we saw on the way as they was that they'd. worse levels still and then lower and that was led by might cereals and their g. basically investors were disappointed because of the global weakness as well as some disappointing economic data and that they'd i'm talking about is durable goods orders were rising less than expected at around three point two percent in february walking to business investment also as the forecast when it comes to oil it's still trading near the lowest level in almost a week and that's after us in the stories surge that western countries started

discussing releasing their reserves to push prices lower now if you look at currencies the euro is slightly higher against the greenback and when it comes to the google we find them you have to be updated picture for you and the ruble is against the euro and the u.s. dollar now in other news asia has knocked off north america for the spot of having the most people asian people there and what we have is the number of asians with a fortune about lisa one hundred million dollars is now eighteen pounds and now that's compared with seventeen thousand in north america and fourteen thousand in western europe when it comes to russia the figure is just over two thousand and the statistics are published never point by night frank and the global property broker expects a number of the countries super rich to grow to a staggering seventy six percent in five years that's the third fastest pace in the world after india and china. that's it from us nat back to you all right thanks

very much art he's marina closer able live from the business desk thank you and a few minutes will bring you the headlines post our interview with the chairman of the world's biggest commodities trading company simon already that interview and the headlines next. the.

there hasn't been anything yet on t.v. . it is to get the maximum physical impact. before source material is what helps keep journalism we. we want to present. something of. something.