it's. an. among the. tens of thousands demanded justice across spain as workers protest cuts and labor reforms with a general strike. that's emits mounting pressure for the deficit const the spanish government looks set to pass laws the of budget greece with latest from the streets of madrid very shortly. grips of the u.k. ahead of a possible time to drive a strike while in london paris and washington all consider releasing oil reserves to push down prices. and moscow renews its call for

a no foreign military intervention in syria as a divided arab league debates the peace plan for the war torn country. it is or so after five pm here in moscow this is the life with me rory some shape. over a pile of public new labor laws has brought spain to a standstill as workers stage or general strike tens of thousands of people all across the country are also gathering for rallies on the streets the massive industrial action is seen as a tough test for the country's young government which is yet to reach one hundred days in office in madrid. because. there is they believe it's really. holding on to the debt

right. that three of the. five years are the tree tops the deficit reduction and what that means is that the labor laws of motion. hence right now claiming to be easy at least was. produced that way. this is. i think on the right but it's not a limitation on the lawyers lawyers a little money i think the mistake is losing. out on the streets. this is something they. don't want to. hundred days let alone that forty. demonstrations. this is like. the sign. of the government well if they were

sitting on the budget. which would be very very close they're like the ease any. many of the. people who get. fresh. and years country it's how do you reason. this condition is something that came back over the years i mean this comes on the the back lane and the tree said to cyclists. counties i take a group supporting right that now u.k. motorists of course in a panic by rising petrol prices and a threatened drive strike but with fuel costs escalating france britain and the us are all discussing a possible release so fast and cheap ticket holders of us to push down the prices so he's out about reports. what we're seeing in the last twenty four hours or so is

panic buying widespread panic buying the fuel up and down the country by motorists queues outside petrol stations and what's really been fueling this panic buying is is the government's handling of this crisis their first piece of advice to motorists was to tell people not to panic which immediately of course set the alarm bells ringing one cabinet minister even said it be a good idea to top up your car now also fill up a spare jerrycan in case of emergencies david cameron the prime minister's even put the army on standby to drive the tankers should industrial action go ahead so these drastic measures are really fueling the panic all of this comes as oil prices are record high not only in britain but also in france and america and what that means is unhappy voters and with elections just around the corner in france and america they need to do something quick to pacify the voters and so what france is now doing they're joining us for america and britain in discussing the option of the

emergency release strategic release of emergency oil supplies to try and drive down those prices now this is a move normally reserved only when there is actually a physical disruption of the oil supply which isn't actually the case here the cause of the oil prices increasing is really a problem of their own making one of the main reasons for oil prices escalating is the sanctions imposed on iran a key or producing nation by america britain and france which is hitting the oil exports hard and this is why countries like germany and italy are refusing to back move to release emergency supplies even the head of the i.a.e.a. the international energy agency which has to authorize any such move has said the there hasn't been a destruction significant enough of oil supplies to warrant such a move so they may have trouble pushing this through but america britain and france have got themselves in this situation and clearly they have. very desperate now to limit the damage and repair the damage that they've caused themselves before it's

too late for their ministrations arkansas bennett reporting right there with you are with live from moscow still to come for you in this program other world economies five a growing powers are banking on serious change find out how the brics group of countries is aiming to break the domination of the dollar as the main reserve currency. moscow has reiterated its opposition to any foreign military intervention in syria as the arab league needs to decide how to mediate a solution to the crisis but the group will give its backing into a u.n. sponsored peace plan while calling on the opposition and president assad to fully comply but not all of the body's members are committed to diplomacy as artie's therof earth reports. well sirius already said that it's not going to trust any initiative by the arab league of course it was suspended from last year and we saw the sale. of the arab league mission in that country that they also highlighted

really the internal decisions that the arab league as a body itself faces and indeed this arab league summit is the first it's been held in baghdad t. decades and it hasn't been particularly well attended some of the countries not sending that thought that amounts 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 and he did say that the country is behind the syrian people's bit of freedom but you can see that's quite a difference of opinion to some of the arab the countries that have been seen very much to be pushing for arming the opposition and sending in arab east into the we seen a guitar call for that to happen so there is definitely a difference of opinion whether the arab league is going to be able to bridge those divisions it remains to be see that is certainly still there today of course there is talk of the age range and that they'll be hearing from case and possibly

endorsing that six point peace plan 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 this with extremely important but of course it doesn't have that ultimatum and it doesn't cool to president assad to step down on the syrian government's already accepted that plan formally that's been met by some of the opposition with a fair amount of understandable skepticism indeed 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 the message from the opposition and the message from the international community to the syrian government has been very much ok what you can dain it now. prove it would be the action behind that peace plan. possibly make it that gate.

happening at the end of the week thirty days. after you sir for the porting there are we can get some more details on this now and talk to dr gupta my are from the center of research in the arab world joining us live on the program from germany oh good to see you today the arab league summit is a thought to be holding back from calls for the syrian president to quit all for the rebels to be armed but the question is where when it comes to the arab league are they united enough in their stance do you think well the arab league is not at all united specifically qatar and saudi arabia where it's being demanded foreign intervention and very large the isolated which is also shown by the case that qatar has already sending. to the arab league from cairo. so the main opposition is. promoted by iraq itself.

which clearly has the position and the syrians have to solve problems the syrians have to find a peaceful solution so as you say qatar and saudi arabia don't seem to be conforming to the general arab league consensus of of trying to find a peaceful solution in syria but if i may if we go back across the atlantic now the u.s. is one of the countries that are supported the u.n. peace plan but it continues to call for pressure to be maintained on assad's government and to arm the rebels or would you see that say these are fairly contradictory positions from washington. well it is the main goal of washington actually. the government of bashar assad so after the very positive response which kofi annan splined has received they could not do anything else but support it also but the latest comments are still we are very skeptical. the syrian government has to act

immediately they have to stop the fighting immediately again it's the same position they take they blame all the responsibility for the fighting to the syrian government whereas the kofi annan plan clearly says just as russia and china have always said both sides have to stop fighting. the syrian opposition is getting criticized all around for being what they call out fragmented by nato and the arab states as well as within its own ranks i mean how bad do you think the consequences be of that this unity. well of course this fragmentation is a great support a great help to stabilize the government of bashar us that we have quite different groups with differing started. their institutions that group which are from the

western point of view gets the most important. national. account of the syrian national council which has headquarter in eastern born which is strongly supported by the turkish government and is specifically supported in the by financial means also by arms from qatar and saudi arabia they mainly are the vast majority of these people belong to the muslim brotherhoods and their position is. nearly all of them are abroad exile syrians who have fought. in the opposition against war certainly certainly as you say it must be must be very easy for members of the opposition leadership to be sitting comfortably in istanbul and other parts of the world freely making calls for what they call demand an end to the assad regime when it's innocent civilians on the ground who are facing the brunt of the uprising but if i may i apologize are

running low on time here i must go doubts to this weekend's friends of syria group meeting will get the opposition to start dialogue with the government saying that such gatherings undermine the u.n. peace plan and what are your thoughts on that. i quite agree with that position is that the friends of syria mainly actors from abroad they leave out the domestic the domestic opposition of both national court the nation council which consists mainly of thirteen left wing parties also the more than three hundred local communities they are the people under arms and they are not included here they have a crisis different position from the friends of syria they want internal solution they don't run that the government is also that immediately their position is also

that what what is on the basis of the plan by kofi annan. from the research or center for research on the arab world live in germany thank you for coming on r.t. today you're welcome. of bringing peace to syria without outside interference was also on the agenda in india well five of the world's fastest growing economies talk security and finance creating an alternative global lender and stepping away from the dollar as a reserve currency also among their main objectives in new delhi as artie's preassure into. leaders from the five leading emerging economies in the world brazil russia india china south africa are all here in new delhi for the fourth annual brics summit russian president dmitry medvedev held a bilateral meeting with the indian prime minister manmohan singh there have been

a lot of things on the agenda one of the main themes of this year's summit is how we view the growing economic powers are also starting to have more political clout on major international issues like syria and again we saw russia and china saying that they've backed a cease fire in syria they want peace in syria but they don't expect president assad to step down they don't want him to step down like many of the western leaders have said let's take a listen to what the russian president had to say. one of the priorities for brics for the years to come should be the strengthening of the u.n. security council and 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 was another thing that all of these leaders talked about reforming the united nations another point that everyone was talking about was iran

and how the same sions are not going to work on iran these five countries are expected in the next eight years to make up fifty percent of the global g.d.p. even earlier this year all of the brics countries were discussing potentially bailing out europe from its financial crisis one of the major things on the agenda was talking about a potential brics bathgate currency that could serve as an alternative to the american dollar or the euro today all the five leaders signed an agreement to actually give out loans in their local currencies which is another move that they're thinking about moving away. from the dollar and moving away from the euro another huge thing on the agenda here in delhi was the idea of a joint rich bank that could serve as an alternative to the western large traditional pay anshul institutions like the international monetary fund and the

world bank is pretty sure to reporting right mind you can catch up with more analysis on developments from the brics summit by just going to also you've got com here's a few of the other items are lined up for you on our web site right now. to the kremlin or our voices from the past republican presidential hopeful mitt romney or rock obama's foreign policy putting america's national security in danger. to ride news in the storm the first ever post so called snowmobile race in siberia spectators a chance to. life in the far north spectacular footage that to be seen as he told. the west african leaders are in mali trying to find a way to restore order after last week's military coup several thousand people protested in the capital bamako against what they see as foreign interference in that country the takeover was led by soldiers on happy with the way the president

was handling an insurgency they have already on bail the new constitution and pledged freedom of speech and movement and their actions have been condemned internationally and there are now threats of sanctions if soldiers don't. lawrence freeman from the executive intelligence review magazine thinks the rebellion was actually inspired by the arab spring. mali this was an area that u.s. put a lot of military backing into and they were trying to fight the various forces now and. grab and you had a military low level officer carry out a coup so you have to wonder how strong was the government this is a 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 in their in can't they carry a regime change in libya and kill gadhafi when it was not necessary there actually

how 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 along policy president obama in the west together with the economic crisis that i think of it can mean causes for this rebellion. all right let's go to some other international headlines for you and brief with the world update starting with pakistan at least seven people have been killed in separate attacks in the balochistan province in the first shooting a gunman on motorbikes fired on a van in the outskirts of the city of quetta killing five shiite muslims in the second attack a u.n. employee and his driver was shot dead at this point no group has claimed responsibility. police in the philippines of clash with farmers protesting against a us free trade agreement that came into force earlier this month over sixty

activists through paint the bombs at the american embassy calling on manila to cancel its upcoming military exercises with washington the deal was initially signed in two thousand and seven but has been delayed due to political stumbling blocks on both sides. to use a gunman responsible for france's the worst terror attack in years will be buried in a muslim ceremony in the country later today as father's native algeria denied permission for a funeral there due to security reasons mohamed merah killed seven people including three children before he was shot dead in a standoff with police last week in a moment is daniel with the business but for now republican candidates are still slugging it out for the right to challenge democratic president barack obama in november election but there are many people frustrated that with only two real alternatives their views are not being properly represented. counterpoints.

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 based on games of 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 so that they just grown accustomed to that team 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 more sawing to the notion that those people who are currently in positions of power or not going to 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 a 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 avoid competition it's very skewed to party elected to clear ship we called it up early 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 take the orders from their corporate paymasters some analysts say the system works in a way to avoid any real change in the way america's government and special interests play a special role the extended primary process we have in the u.s. gives special interests like. military contractors or others it gives them time.

time to monitor the election process and put in resources to attack anyone who's not blind yours 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 distances him from the other republican frontrunners political experts say someone like paul stands no chance of winning the nomination because at the end of the day the two parties always deliver mainstream candidate. 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 vote republican this 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 balanced many see the way candidates are picked in the us as a safeguard against drastic change but as the discontent among americans grows on a 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 him to break the much loved and much cherished business as usual washington old i'm going to check our reporting from washington our pete. kind of time to take a trip down the money lane daniel over to you i understand you're talking all the prices yes so we'll go live to london to talk to us and your plans for releasing strategic reserves to avoid further price hikes for more i'm joined by payphones berger a plus they thanks for joining us if it does happen how much could this cut prices . yeah hi there well the talk about releasing to reserve has really picked up a notch this week with the french making the noise they've been making about

starting to tap was reserves if there's been an exercise like that in the last year or so when us received reserves were last released and we saw that prices fall by five or six dollars a barrel at that time so it's not unreasonable to think that price could fall by five or six dollars a barrel again it looks like the storage tanks are going to be opened in crude but on the market with saudi arabia says the west is wrong there's no shortage of supply so who's right well on this one the saudis in my personal opinion have definitely got it right one thing that's going on in the background here is u.s. crude oil production looks like it's going to rise from six million barrels a day to as much as eight or eight and a half million barrels a day in the next couple years because of shale crude investments across much of the united states and that would mean the u.s. is producing as much crude oil as someone like saudi arabia and i wouldn't be far away from a country as large as russia which is of course the world's biggest producer so the saudis have got this right there seems to be plenty of crude oil out there and plenty of refined products as well they've been many of the countries that could

join in to talk reserves. certainly the americans would love to do that it's an election year in the states obama would like to see lower prices the u.k. could be expected to join in probably germany as well. all right they've been going to our plants thank you for joining r.t. let's look at those prices now kreutz hovering near its lowest level in almost a week on that news with light sweet just on that one over a barrel just check the oil prices there we go brant is currently holding on the one to four now on to europe which is having a second bad week every main courses down including madrid buybacks as the country gears up for a general strike against government spending cuts the only for the year to date in fact in your rush is no exception to my six is now over seven percent in just two weeks let's take a look at the major movers on thursday most of the blue chips are trading in the red mitchell's admitted it needs to restructure some of its loans after the fall of metals prices. down as it reveals it's looking to build its own power plants and bt

banks earnings guidance for last year on the exchange rates the euro's no law against the dollar or the rubles gaining both against the greenback and the euro and the biggest internet share listing in history may take place in two months so this is from the wall street journal claim facebook is preparing for an i.p.o. in may it was most popular social network plans to raise as much as ten billion dollars that would value the company at around one hundred billion and no one wants russia to started the biggest chocolate brand united confectioner's in moscow government couldn't find an investor for its stake so cancelled the option it wanted to sell a third of the four firm for around half a billion dollars as part of russia's big privatization program. and asia's not north america off the top of the millionaires list the number of asians with a fortune of at least one hundred million dollars is now eighteen thousand that's compared with seventeen thousand in north america in russia there's over two thousand such people and that front report also says the number of the country's

super rich will grow seventy six percent in the next five years and you're up to date more and more stories on our website r.t. dot com slash business always a pleasure so you sad. i do stay with us if you can here on the program you know just a few minutes a recap of top stories up and then our interview shows spotlight focusing on the arctic energy resources told us just.

something for you what is happening was seen snow is in the you know the after party for a while parts of the full house however i totally disagree i do all these things the parts of baghdad. we are still waiting for that actually reduces to how to. get our sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm sorry welcome to the big picture.