this is. tens of thousands unite in spain to protest against labor reforms and new austerity measures. there is growing pressure to institute the meeting in baghdad because they the how to deal with the syrian crisis while some have to take the plane with the others want the syrian rebels away and with its lead. the five member blocks of the brics countries are meeting in delhi today to discuss an alternative to the almighty euro and dollars in dare to reform to global economy .

noon in moscow i'm not treasurer good to have you with us here on r t our top story this hour tens of thousands across spain are gathering for a general strike to protest against new labor of forms and seen as the first real test for the new prime minister mariano rajoy who was government has only been in office three months the strike comes a day before he's expected to announce more painful austerity cuts or he's jacob greaves is live for us in madrid we'll have him a little later in the program with an update but stay with us though i was we bring you up to the minute coverage of the spanish strike throughout the day and for more videos and analysis you can always head over to our team dot com here's what's online for you right now. for petrol drivers in the u.k. hit the pumps after being warned of a possible fuel tanker strike and. facebook

faceoff some u.s. employers asked people to hand over social network passwords when applying for a job. the world economies five leading challengers are banking on serious change the brics group of nations aiming to break the spell of the dollar and euro is the main reserve currency used or his previous reader has been following the story she joins us live now from new delhi with all the latest. so how exactly are these foreign countries playing to waterboard a western economic model what's their driving range. that's right now well there's a lot going on here it's the fourth annual break summit leaders from brazil russia

india china and south africa all just concluded their talks they also signed an agreement to give loans in their local currencies obviously this is a move to move away from the dollar and the euro there is a lot of talk here today about the traditional financial institutions like the i.m.f. the international monetary fund and the world bank which have traditionally been led by the last one of the things that talked the agenda today was. talking about a potential development bank between the brics countries that's something that's going to be further investigated and they'll discuss that again at the fifth annual break summit next year in south africa the russian president dmitri medvedev prime minister manmohan singh the south african leader jacob zuma all had very similar thoughts about the brics also showing their geo political influence on there against western intervention there against sanctions on iran they believe that

there should be peace in a cease fire that kofi annan mentions in syria but they don't want president assad russia and china specifically to step down here's a little bit more from what the russian president dmitry medvedev that in today's talks. with you one of the priorities for brics for the years to come. should be the strengthening of the u.n. security council in maintaining is your national peace and security and also ensuring that the u.n. is not used as a cover for regime change and unilateral actions to resolve conflicts situations with him. and that's exactly what the indian prime minister expressed as well and the south african leader all five leaders have been talking about reforming the

united nations a very strong sentiment here in delhi. and one of the other international issues on the table at this meeting. as i mentioned that you know there's been a lot of talk about syria and the position of these countries on syria they don't they obviously don't want violence to be happening in syria they want as a ceasefire there is also a little bit of talk about iran and same things on iran most of these countries are obviously against think she's on iran they don't believe that this kind of pressure is really going to solve anything but the biggest talk here the biggest point of these countries obviously coming together is these five countries are expected to have fifty percent of the global g.d.p. in the next eight years by two thousand and twenty so they're really an active nomic alliance still most of the talk here was focused on this idea of a development bank between the brics nations and a potential alternative to the dollar as of the global reserve currency. all right

argues bruce riedel live for us from the burke summit in new delhi india thanks for that update. tens of thousands of people gathering across spain for a general strike to protest against new labor reforms and seen as the first real test for marianna the new prime minister who's been in office there for only three months now this is a day before he's expected to announce more painful austerity measures and for more on this i'm joined by our g.'s she agrees who is live for us in the dritte logik of so what's happening now what are the reasons behind the strike. seen this all going to number of people trying to enter the central square behind me already have been denied doing so by police tens of thousands descend here later today and they are likely to be joined by other striking around the country all this part of that general strike even though there will be some transport links offer some break

it is in it there will no doubt speed and go in golfing in spain as a whole now the main reason says of those involved we saw a similar protests taking place last evening is all to do with labor laws are being passed by this government they're set to make it easier for employers to sack workers and also significantly reduce their wages in the future this is all in the face of startling unemployment rates we take the latest figures about twenty three percent of the population as a cross-section of those aged under twenty five with even more about fifty percent of the population now this government is relatively new it's been in power for less than one hundred days so we face two major strikes a number of demonstrations one which took place recently in valencia every mars would have an uprising level of conflict between protesters and police on the streets. can we expect the strikes to influence the government as to austerity

plans. spy the level of offer on the street you have to see that the spanish government looks like to maintain its position has recently been elected it was done so on the mandates of ensuring the slain doesn't collapse it doesn't have to seek an e.u. bailout source there is part of that measure but some of the problems that we're hearing from the people is how they speak in fluid implementation and which areas are being tugged his presence there is a lot of pressure coming from the e.u. to significantly reduce that deficit and make cuts and the spanish prime minister has said that friday's a budget is going to be passed is likely to be very very austere they're looking to cut about thirty billion euro in total we've seen that pressure mounting also earlier over the last couple of weeks from the italian prime minister he has said that there's a risk of a spanish contagion this problem could spread to the euro zone as

a whole and we also heard from the bank of spain which is stress that the country entered into a second recession. or rather he's jake agrees live for us in madrid thanks very much for that update. back to our earlier story about the break summit in new delhi india we're going to get some more analysis on this from china with professor adams but no more from the university of hong kong. thanks for joining us here so these are brics nations plan to create a new development bank among the things they're talking about why are these five nations taking the step now. well thanks for having me on your program. is the first time i'm on russian t.v. so i'm happy to be there. yes this is a good question the brics nations are having planning to have their own bank and i think this is. time has come because they

want the i see a new kind of let me grouping as a bloc if you want they want to i say it's you know their presence and so having institutions like a bank would actually control it it's this president and this and this idea to. force reckon with i mean the brits have tried to. buy this as a new very possible to. go to world bank as a new very possible so for one thing it will help them but it will also help the world religious only integrates it will give to people who want to little money or want to approach these banks are going to go into the world bank but it can go to bricks. how do you think this will affect the global economy were so far the dollar and the euro have been the powerhouse currencies. this again is. a specimen issue it will of course have an effect on the new global

dominance of the us dollar and. you know carries it to europe. for us or for our submission. will be some kind of. issue to the point i. predict that we're going to begin to see a basket of currencies including the chinese yuan the p. this sort of account the president. of course the russian. ruble so we're going to see this ask it of currency charlie. guarantees and i think it's against a good thing for the world about it because we may as well try some alternative so yes. it will be a challenge and a critical challenge to dominance of the u.s.

dollar and the. all right thanks very much for your insight professor adams with the university of hong. well stay with us here on r.t. still to come this hour african spring we report on the latest situation in the west in country mali by military coup which saw its president overthrown. power source overcome the rising number of americans are dissatisfied with having only two real choices come election day two thousand and twelve. first as the conflict rages in syria despite a u.n. back peace plan the arab league is meeting to decide on how to mediate a solution not all of its members though committed to diplomacy were some are openly calling for military action r.t. sarah for a has the latest. well serious already said that it's not going to test any initiative by the arab league of course it was suspended from it last year and we still say. of the arab league mission in that country that they also highlighted

really the internalizations that the arab the as a party itself faces and in see this arab league summit the first is being held in baghdad key decades it hasn't been particularly well attended some of the countries not sending their top diplomats to get involved in that now iraq's foreign minister said that the country rejected calls for foreign intervention as a means of ending the conflict a bit he did say to the countries behind by the syrian people's bit of freedom but that's quite a difference of opinion to some of the arab league countries that have been seen very much to be pushing for arming the opposition and sending in arab chiefs into the we see no guitar coup for that to happen say there is definitely a difference of opinion whether the outer he's going to be able to bridge these divisions in a.c.c. this certainly thought that today of course syria is top of the agenda and that they'll be hearing from casey and possibly inducing that six point peace plan it's

six points now very similar see the arab league initiative at the beginning of the year the removal of the forces from some of the conflict areas the release of political prisoners all these points extremely important but of course it doesn't have the alternates and it doesn't call for president assad to step down not the syrian government already accepted that plan formally that's been met by some of the opposition with a fair amount of understandable skepticism here in istanbul we've had hundreds of the members of the opposition gathering ahead of the friends of syria conference is going to be happening on sunday and really did message from the opposition and message me international community to the syrian government has been very much ok you can date it now. they want to see the actions behind this peace plan the backing of russia and china so possibly that is going from a key difference that they will clear that. there will be happening at the end of

the week. the big question for that both of. us are suspended food aid to north korea after the country refused to cancel our rocket launch scheduled for may the april russian in the says this breaks the deal in which north korea agreed to suspend its uranium enrichment program your missile test it's ok for humanitarian support since the launch is merely intended to send a satellite the space for scientific purposes and estimate crop production james corbet editor of the corporate report thinks the u.s. as you can draw as a geo political. let me tell you the only effect that this will have is to make the people of north korea even more dependent on pyongyang and central power that they hold over the food supply and further drive north korea to other sources of food aid will 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. shouldn't shooting itself in the foot if it is indeed attempting to really change

the power structure of north korean society through. food aid could be used as a tool and instruments of national power which is really just really a mask for. the ability to use this food aid as it is a geopolitical weapon 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 dollars contract can two thousand to provide light water reactors to north korea which formed the basis of their nuclear program but of course that won't happen because one of the board members during that time was former u.s. defense secretary donald rumsfeld. a delegation of west african army. he had arrived in mali's capital bamako as part of an attempt to restore order after last week's coup this is toppled president obama due to nami touring says he is safe and still in the country several thousand people took to the streets of ghana co in

support of the military takeover led by soldiers unhappy with the president's policies the self declared leaders of the coup have already have build a new constitution promising greater public freedoms the actions have been condemned by few when they lead to mali suspension for making french a west african regional body lawrence freeman from executive intelligence review thinks that the rebellion could be the result of a failure of western policy in the region. mali this was an area that u.s. put a lot of military backing into and they were trying to fight the various forces no one is. in the grip and you had a military low level officer carry out a coup still 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 there in kent the carrier. in libya and kill gadhafi when 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 and initiative so essentially it's see a failed want policy president obama in the west together with the economic crisis that i think of it to mean causes for this rebellion. turning now to some other stories making headlines across the globe six have been killed in two attacks in so west pakistan the first in the motson district when a gunman 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. former i.m.f. chief dominique strauss kahn claims he has diplomatic immunity in

a civil case in which he's accused of sexually assaulting a hotel maid last year the i.m.f. says he's not entitled to the unity because he was in new york on personal business at the time of the alleged crime caught also under investigation and friends over allegations he was involved in a prostitution ring. and ireland where a two and a half ton elephant named baby escaped from a circus in the town of blackpool a forty year old packager in iraq through a car park before charging toward a busy intersection in a shopping center the baby's handler says she ran away because she didn't want to take a bath she was brought under control and returned to the success. in the us republican candidates continue to duke it out in primaries across the country in the hopes of challenging president obama for the top job but a recent gallup poll suggests americans aren't satisfied with just two choices with around forty percent considering themselves independents and he's got a chicky on reports most u.s. citizens think the bipartisan system could be outdated. 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 hassen two teams they watch football games baseball games and basketball where there is one team against the other team that's kind of the way they see politics as well i think it affects their thinking there's only two choices republicans and democrats get it they just grown accustomed to that and same mentality. but according to a gallup poll over 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 more signs of the notion that those people who are currently in positions of power or not want to walk any sort of change in 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 goon 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 because that total nightmare created by the two parties to vote for it competition is basically two party elected to cater ship we called it to our police and they're all fighting for osha sleep over who's going to go to the white house so they can take up residence and to take the orders from their core group remasters some analysts say the system works in a way to avoid any real change in the way america's government and special interests play special role the extended primary process we have in the us gives 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 are going to give those chairs tables favorable to them so we just 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 distances 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 the mainstream candidates are. 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's vote 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 loss to towns you have americans voting for the lesser of two evils it was the lesser of two bad many see the way candidates are paid in the us as a safeguard against drastic change but as that this content among americans grows over the country's foreign policy over corporate controlled economies so grows the push for fresh ideas and bold actions but the question is will the system allow in those who could break the much alive then much cherished business as usual washington or world i'm going to check our reporting from washington r.t. . and still to come in our sports exclusive with russia's only f one driver. joey petrarch yours is thoughts on a racing in the future of the most popular event in motor sports that's coming your way later this hour here on r.g.p. . across to the business press or even closer eva rating for all the latest

so europe and russia in arbitrating for a little more than an hour you must have a better idea of how the investors are feeling today tell us oh yes why you would think so but actually it's still quite early both russia and europe you go from negative to positive and vice versa let's take a look at the latest figures we'll start with europe first we see it still and negative picture there both the footsie and that's a losing over zero point one percent and there spanish stocks are among the ones that have the most pressure and that's after a general strike in the country in protest of austerity measures by the government they're now moving on to russia and here those markets have managed to make a u. turn well at least the r.t.s. but my sense is slowly heading there was that the r.t.s. is now back in positive sense or one of my sense is flat let's take a look at some individual share moves on the mice that we have all related stocks which are still among the main losers in the us because of weaker crude prices we have energy companies sort of witness to gas which is that and it's not profit rose

eighty percent last year but that's according to russian accounting standards moving on we have russian british. and that susan point six percent this hour of appliances and really power stations and provide electricity for as the pauses in the north of russia and finally read to be banned is that point three percent this hour and we know that is two thousand and twelve net profit growth six the two sides are moving on to currencies the euro is higher against the u.s. dollar and a similar picture for the ruble it's gaining against both the greenback and the euro crisis and asian markets are down commodity forums are particularly on press the. but we also know now that ratings agency fitch has cut its outlook on the japan's economy growth for two thousand and twelve it went from two point two percent to one point nine percent but on a positive note the parents of every retail sales rose three and a half percent which was much more than expected and moving on through all else

prices are now going a back up and there's still trading close to the lowest level in almost the we thought that was of course following us inventories that certain western countries discussing the possibility of tapping emergency reserves to push prices lower now in other news the largest ever internet i.p.o. may take place in just a couple of months sources from the wall street journal claim facebook is preparing for listing as soon as may the world's most popular social network plans to raise as much as ten billion dollars which would value the whole company at one hundred billion dollars. and it seems that no one wants russia's sweetest assets and by that i mean russia is the largest confectionary maker and also government couldn't find any investors who are interested in that state so it canceled the auction altogether the sale involved in almost thirty percent stake for over four hundred fifty million dollars and it was part of russia's privatization program. and

finally asia has knocked off north america and now goes the title as the world's economic center of gravity number of asians with a fortune of at least one hundred million dollars is now estimated at eighteen thousand now this is compared to seventeen thousand in north america and fourteen thousand in western europe when it comes to russia that figure is slightly less just over two thousand and six were published in a report by frank and the global property broker expects that the number of the country's super rich to grow a staggering seventy six percent in just five years and that would be the third fastest pace in the world after india and china. well you got mad that's how business likes us out here at the best all right thanks very very much a few minutes we've got the headlines for you plus our interview with the chairmen of the world's largest cannot of these trading companies simon murray that's all

coming your way so stay with us. there hasn't been anything yet on t.v. . it is to get the maximum political impact.

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