now in the palm of your. western and arab supporters of the syrian revolution turkey to press the assad regime with some of the members pushing for further of militarization of the conflict. aha moment between leaders medvedev and obama sees us republican hawks with a volley of anti russia rhetoric slammed by moscow those cold war hollywood cliche . and dirty riots and protests break out across spain as the government announces massive new cuts unparalleled since the franco dictatorship.

eleven am in moscow i might try to bring you today's top stories and a look back at the week's news here on r t calls for more arms to the syrian rebels growing louder with saudi arabia saying that supplying weapons is a duty that's one of the major opposition groups has appealed to syria's neighbors to allow the transit the request comes ahead of the seven nation friends of syria meeting which is due to kick off in turkey today or he's sorry for if he's in istanbul she joins us live with the latest so the second meeting of the states calling themselves the friends of syria set to start what is the expected outcome. that elegance the still arriving here at the name and discussing ways the supporting the syrian opposition and of applying pressure to the assad regime now expect today to see the pledge is a humanitarian aid and financial aid they see the victims of the syrian called. the

syrian opposition as well the syrian national council beginning to be looking for ways to make that position body more effective as you said that they should have the first time calls in neighboring countries to allow for the flow of weapons to the free syrian army now we know there are a lot of concerns. about that the free syrian army would fuel us to carry violence in the country and of course you've got the international community and the syrian government having signed on. peace unlikely that you're going to see any acceptance of being defeated opposition today and of course big questions remaining about that peace plan primarily about it just exactly how it's going to be implemented and also the timeline for implementation of that as well. and the meeting is designed to bolster the opposition movement but have the rebel forces do anything to end the violence. the syrian national council meetings here in istanbul for the past week they've really been trying to overcome some of their internal

divisions to present a much more united front and certainly to thing gain the support of the international community as well presenting that united but possibly today you might see a recognition from the friends of syria of the syrian national council as the sole representative of the syrian people they still have a lot of internal problems that they do need to come because he said that along with pledges to humanitarian and financial aid beyond that really there's not much of the friends of syria meeting at. all right r.t. sara for a while. live from istanbul we'll check in with you later thank you. and the u.s. is one of the countries that supported special envoy kofi annan peace plan but still continues to push for a change in syria well that's a stance that's not helping end the war according to dr good provider from the center for research on the arab world. it is the main goal of washington actually to oust the government of bashar assad's so that. the very positive

response which school fiance plan has received they could not school anything else but supporters also but the latest comments 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 in vague blame all the responsibility for the fighting to the syrian government whereas the kofi annan plan pioli says just as russia and china have always said both sides have to stop fighting. syria as i need brink of civil war we revisit one of the most controversial events of the arab spring. to many parties who have interests that the it doesn't that we should be silenced go to. the man who engineered the libyan regime is down paul says the reason we end of the gadhafi regime may have

been about more than just revenge. and washington decides to leave north korea hungry having announced it will suspend food aid to the problem of pancreas politics here on yang's plans to launch an earth an observation satellite but the u.s. calls a missile threats. but first america's missile shield plans emerged again this week to form a stumbling block between russia and the u.s. the pentagon now wants to expand the defense system to asia and the middle east this is president medvedev and obama held key talks on an international nuclear summit in seoul. just like. a microphone caught obama's private remark asking for a space until november as u.s. elections past his republican challengers immediately pounced accusing him of secretly plotting with moscow what is more hawks lipan to be anti russia bandwagon

argues guide for the war cries aren't resonating with the american voters. the runup to the presidential election in the us. a perfect time to drag out the good old cold war skeleton from the closet. russia this is without question our number one geopolitical foe in the world of the presidential hopeful mitt romney russia is america's prime enemy while it's president elect you should remember. that. i think president putin represents a real threat. to the. stability and peace of the world. that's seen the world of mitt romney what about well america there is no evidence of any popular support for bashing russia for hostility towards russia so this idea that somehow or another russia is a concern for americans it just doesn't add up at all with

a very small sliver of people asked about romney's comments president medvedev advised him to stop reverting to holden days hollywood steering types and take a look at the calendar. and you can go i would advise all u.s. presidential candidates to make reasonable sleep and didn't do them any home to do so they will choose it's the year twenty twelve look the mood nine hundred seventy s. and the current leaders of the two countries may have long delayed the cold war to aggress but for some it's just. to good to like girl boy to return to those cold war simple days. russia is not the only foreign policy bandwagon the republican presidential hopefuls are capitalizing on the list also includes china iran's syria each candidate except ron paul trying to sound tougher than the other

the strategies they put forward warming arming isolating threatening i want to be china i want to go to war with china these guys are ranchers and the end of it but as you can and look for ways to. get to work to harness of course you take military action it is unacceptable for iran to have a nuclear weapon but what if all of what the trigger happy candidate suggest on foreign policy actually happens i worry about the world's only which from the became president because i think he would adopt a more militaristic foreign policy this world is to get to them it's a sketch that says some kind of the mythical and very unreal view of the world if america takes up a much more aggressive stance towards lots of foreign countries it will be a much more dangerous world a bill also be dangerous for america because we can't afford to do that mitt romney will most likely win the republican nomination and america will face

a choice between him and president obama polls show the majority of americans disapprove of obama's policies but most experts agree that he will lead them to really win the election because too many americans are just plain scared of having someone like romney as their leader i'm going to start our reporting from washington r.t. . risk assessment consultant daniel wagner says stoking tension with russia wall to really benefit no one and even the most hawkish republicans that realize this. it's easy for politicians in the heat of an electoral campaign to pander to the lowest common denominator of the american populace with cold war rhetoric that's exactly what mr romney is doing i tend to wonder how thoughtful he would be on these larger issues if he were to get into office and it also says to me that he's not particularly sophisticated when it comes to foreign policy it's almost as if he's been handed lines by his advisors about what to say and that it's intended not to

necessarily make progress but to get himself elected the fact is that america and russia much better as allies ultimately whoever is in the white house will ultimately go away from the extreme come toward the center and make some sense in what he's talking. so to come as our friends for the french ideological arrest imprisonment and fourteen inch of the country's presidential campaign terms of the war are blind palpitation politicians under realistic solutions to very real problems. but first some of the biggest riots in decades swept across spain this week with mass protests coinciding with a nationwide general strike over austerity the government remained under audit announcing twenty seven billion euros worth of cuts the next day spending on education social safety nets in every other sector slashed by about seventeen percent furthermore tax hikes being introduced across the spectrum in state workers will be hit with a pay freeze critics of call the cuts the most draconian since the dictatorship of

francisco franco thirty years ago but economic analyst michael moore austen's ultimately the measures will work. what i can see is that what this plane want to make the spanish government is not only visited to fill it's also impossible when you look at the private sector private sector is totally over a bit more or less bankrupt when you look at the banks over there been quite central bank government also manas bankrupt how can you implemented authority package in these circumstances so everybody will see it is a rule this won't work and what i what i see is that spain is the last nail in the euro zone coffin and to sions are putting about adjustment adjustment in such a nice word but it means in reality that people there have to become poorer they have to become poorer this is the adjustment that they mean so again this could easily lead to

a domestic reaction and this could also trigger more problems in the other southern countries here in europe. and while oil prices around the world continue soaring amid growing tensions over the west sanctions and rhetoric against iran this is especially worrying for the e.u. which has been weakened by austerity is now with the mercy of market mandated prices from the national iranian american council think sanctions could just be a costly kneejerk reaction. the real problem here is that the us and the e.u. have passed these unprecedented sanctions without a real strategy or understanding of comes next we're sort of making this up as we go along and we're finding that the sanctions that we put in place to try to restrict iran from profiting off of oil sales is really actually backfiring on us and that iran has tremendous leverage against us if we're going to take this confrontation to one to energy so i'm skeptical of the ability of

the united states and france and others to actually mitigate this the fear of a war with iran has actually added about twenty dollars to the price of a barrel of oil so this concern that israel may strike iran or that the united states may end up in a war with iran is one of the driving factors of why it's so expensive and simply addressing the supply issue is not going to mitigate that. still to come this hour of violence erupts again in the middle east brutal clashes marked lend a commemorative by palestinians who see it as a symbol of their struggle against israeli occupation. and new n.h.s. reforms in the u.k. leave many wondering if free health care will be lost or profiteers who could stand to make millions from the changes. but before we get to that french police have carried out a series of nationwide raids arresting nineteen suspected is limits and seizing caches of weapons they were eskom just a week after mohamed merah

a frenchman of algerian origin was shot dead by police in toulouse after he gunned down seven people last month he says or so he reports the case is dominating the race for the country's presidency mohamed merah was killed by police after thirty two hours seizure loose his life may have ended that day but his story has given france's presidential hopefuls an excuse for electioneering with ever more radical rhetoric. that's given rise to a huge political debate and what's made it to the foreground of the discourse is narrative background. from there anyone who regularly consults internet sites which promote terror or hatred or violence will be sentenced to prison any person going abroad for the purposes of indoctrination in terrorist ideology will be criminally punished that's in addition to psychos east policy of stripping foreign born criminals of their citizenship further tightening border control

saying there are too many foreigners in france ok only advocating the political change in extremist view is not a crime we have the freedom of speech in france and they don't see. the restrict it's. while a french citizen a nice family came to france a very long time ago so. obviously this kind of terrorism comes now from inside from society it's not just something that is imported from the middle east. and you cannot. take away french nationality from a french nation or this is not allowed under the french constitution and then there's marine le pen the far right national front party candidate having long pushed a more radical anti immigration line call for the revival of the death penalty for child killers and the deportation of any foreigner who goes on a suspicious trip to places like afghanistan how many mohammed merah are there in

the boats and planes that arrive in france full of immigrants mohammed merah is perhaps only the tip of the iceberg it's time to wage war on this and the mentalist political religious groups who are killing our children the threat of islamic fundamentalism has been underestimated. therefore i think all that's been announced after these tragic events are proposals put forward solely for the elections it goes to the one who proposes the most radical solutions which would aim supposedly at solving the problem but the problem is much deeper we are now the growing number of immigrants in france about six million of whom are muslims is being labeled as a problem by some prominent figures politicians are throwing around what they call solutions but the question is whether any of these policy ideas on immigration or security are realistic and are addressing an actual problem or simply the consequences of something more fundamental the core of the problem is that it's pretty difficult to recruit because what is the goal of the problem there doesn't

seem to be much consensus on that either does or sylvia r.t. paris. pyongyang a slammed the u.s. over its decision to its decision to suspend food aid to north korea blaming washington for breaching february's humanitarian agreement two hundred forty thousand tons of provisions were promised in return for the communist state halting nuclear and missile tests north korea announced this week that it refuses to hold back plans to launch an earth observation satellite in mid april but the u.s. and south korea think the launch is really our long range missile test claims of sending a satellite into space for purely peaceful purposes and reportedly invited outside experts to prove its sincerity erik's iraq and co-founder of a campaign to encourage war as washington's acting against international law by involving food aid in a political standoff just a week or two before we heard the administration in washington saying that this was

a good deal it was going to get food to the neediest people in north korea and now we're playing politics with food food as a weapon of war under international law has always been illegal to use and we really need to find a way back to the table not see individual acts as a provocation they certainly have a right to put a satellite into space as other nations do but let's demilitarized let's look at the base issues let's look at getting the peace treaty to end the korean war finally and then i think these kinds of issues one runs. we have all the latest stories videos and analysis on our website r.t. dot com so don't hesitate to log on there here's what's a click away right now. the threat of a devastating thirty metres tsunami again looms over japan as a panel of experts warns the country should prepare for a new mega quake. and the world goes dark for earth hour as millions around the

world sacrifice a modern day can be and this is in the name of environmental awareness. thousands of protesters clashed with israeli security forces that palestinian israeli border points friday while marking land day events used palestinians commemorating the deaths of six arabs killed by police in demonstrations against a land confiscations by israel back in one thousand nine hundred eighty six while he's powerless leader has been following the events. this year the annual land day demonstrations turned violent with one protester killed in gaza several dozen injured across the west bank and at least thirty four people arrested in the event marks the killing back in one nine hundred seventy six six palestinians during a round confiscation policy of the when israeli government palestinians complained that the israelis took arab land and used it for building israeli settlements and since then this and an event has been used to highlight the plight of the palestinian people this year occurring sided with what was dubbed the global march

to jerusalem and its all some eighty two countries participating the attention was focused on numerous palestinian cities and villages as well as arab israeli towns and israeli borders along the world today new border some twenty thousand people gathered and while there were no reports of violence in certain highlighted the palestinian struggle among the groups there was a jewish group calling itself jews united against zionism and they were waving palestinian flags and chanting anti israeli slogans at the come monday a trip point which is the main checkpoint between jerusalem and ramallah it was violence starting from as early as new day friday here the israeli police were using rubber bullets and tear gas to push back protesters who were burning tires and also throwing stones eppy israeli border police. i wondered fifty killed more than four hundred injured the result of the latest throes of violence sweeping

libya's former rebels and tribesmen duke it out for power there the nation's governments brokered a cease fire but will be a little how it has little power but with a vast number of far left over from the revolution as the violence across the country continues there is a growing sense among critics of last year's uprisings produce little of real change and the next hour of his exclusive interview with an architect if iraq is down thought enough right look at the cost and the reasoning behind a rebellion for too many. who have interests the it doesn't to and should be silenced photo of you who is trying to buy time. he said to me that in this interview one of them was bush who was sent to france. providing some sense of the what he called wouldn't the solution with it who was killed who put him into your libyans who are libyans and for others but really

don't know but. is that many posters who have read into this. just keep citing for the. the ousted libyan libyan leader didn't only carry closely guarded secrets but was viewed by some as a stabilizing figure in the wider african continent and now you know if i use a cell phone in the grip of violence on the rest of the direct result of an influx of former procrit often fighters from libya and ultimatum set by western african countries demanding mali's military junta head back to power to the country civilian leadership expires monday military commanders seize power last week i angry at the government's handling of tribal rebellions in the country's north but the crisis is far from being solved with rebels still in control of recently northern cities political analyst lawrence freeman from need second of intelligence review things nato bears responsibility for fighting is all your arms are coming

from libya and 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 there. 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 fact that there is in the zealous nature of president obama and president sarkozy and prime minister cameron in their in can't the carrier we seen. in libya and link kill gadhafi when it was not necessary there actually help peace process because many of these rebels are coming back from libya very well aren't you. britain's health system set for a controversial overhaul after new reforms were passed critics in from below could spend the end of free health care with allegations of some lords and m.p.'s who voted on the changes put profits first or he's laura smith reports on

a system that could be in need of a checkup. it's a merry go round of self interest along for the ride members of parliament the house of lords and health care companies opening up britain's national health service to plum duff by profiteers the jewel in the u. case welfare state is under strain promising free health care but with criticism that it can't cope the government says private sector involvement is the only but some say it's not those in need of care but rather those in power who are set to benefit. to sitting on the boards. in the companies and yet they would these vested interests are allowed to vote on health and social care bill with these private health interests which is a conflict of interest. institutional corruption at worst friends with

benefits they get cameron prime minister received two hundred ten thousand pounds to his party for nothing in cash home tycoon part and made him a lot gave the party twenty five thousand pounds just a week after the health reforms were announced andrew lansley health secretary got twenty one thousand pounds to fund his office from john nash who's the chairman of k u k which already gets ninety six percent of its business from the n.h.s. the list is long and illustrious it runs to nearly a hundred and fifty names all m.p.'s who voted yes to opening up health care to competition and stand to gain from the results there may be more the research isn't finished yet and now that the bill has passed its detractors are powerless to stop private companies stepping in and making health care about profits not healing investigation show a number of westminster m.p.'s and

a quarter of britain's house of lords have links with private health care provider . it is through investments patronage or board membership and the parties in power conservatives and liberal democrats have received substantial funding from various private health care interests following the legislation those companies also poll where people starting to see a number of private health interests starting to look very seriously at cherry picking some of the best most profitable parts of the national health service they were just waiting for this legislation to go through parliament and of course now ready to pounce the changes have been highly controversial and these people think they'll damage the quality of care many feel the m.p.'s did declare their interests and should have been banned from voting the local government code of conduct says anybody with an interest must never take a positive solution that affects their interest this is so doggedly driven it's to do with private enterprise use. profit says not to

do with. inside westminster m.p.'s reportedly bans the table in jubilation when the reforms passed outside the bell tolls the free health care law a smith london we're back in a few minutes with a recap of our headlines stay with us here on our team.

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