nations are supporting syria's a revolution meet in turkey to thrash out plans to help the opposition none build pressure on bashar al assad's regime this while turkish police dispersed supporters of the syrian leader outside. also in the week's top stories a hot mike exchange between barack obama and dmitri medvedev leads to and t. russian rhetoric among america's republican presidential candidates a trend moscow has slammed as quote cold war hollywood cliché. and spain adopt just toughest of budget cuts in decades despite a nationwide strike and mass protests that resulted in violent clashes with police

and dozens of arrests. but the stories that made headlines this week and today this is the weekly with me rory stewart show around sixty nations comprising the u.s. and its allies meeting in turkey to discuss how to build pressure on the syrian regime and bolster the opposition washington says the main focus of the so-called friends of syria group is to intensify sanctions against president assad some western and arab states blame him entirely for the violence in the country whereas damascus says it's fighting armed extremists sorry furthest following the talks for us live in istanbul. so can you i just bring us up to date here on the details what exactly are these nations where you are talking about. the main syrian opposition

body the syrian national council have called for the arming of opposition fighters in the country saying that the only way to protect civilians now was certainly some of the gulf countries notably in saudi arabia has certainly been very supportive of that it's unlikely that you're going to see that agreed upon here today much more the focus has been on the provision of non-lethal aid in fact talk today has been a potential for a vision of a multi billion dollar multi million dollar fund now the details about it being discussed at the moment and the behind closed doors meeting. possibly that could be used to provide salaries to syrian army defectors and to the free syrian army fighters possibly delivered in some kind of trust of course china not in attendance today once in attendance at the first one again not participating in this conference then they've been very critical of what they said is

a one sided. saying previously the friends of syria conference doesn't have the right to speak or judge kofi annan peace plan on behalf of the international community nor can it take the role of the security council today to talk about that peace plan if there's been a lot of understandable skepticism about the syrian government's acceptance of that plan and already a lot of criticisms that they're not doing enough to implement on the ground in peace but some of the big questions remaining are exactly how that is going to be implemented in syria and how it's monitored as well and today we've heard from some of the delegates saying that there's not an unlimited time for that peace plan to be implemented and possibly what you could see is the friends of syria conference at some point in the future are turning to the security council to seek further measures of the syrian opposition is known to be quite divided if i were here there are about four or five different factions of the opposition who have managed to

show and make a show of any unity meeting to say. well the syrian national council has been here in istanbul a for the past week trying really to overcome some of their internal divisions and present a united front here today their ain't really. to seek recognition as the sole representative of the syrian people that they're going to be recognized as the leading but they censored certainly still a lot of problems even from within and a lot of criticism again as we said from countries such as russia and from the from people within the country as well that they're not representative of the syrian people and that's really going to be quite a big issue they've actually seen outside the conference center. for a government. with a run in with some of the opposition groups we saw first by the riot police who have a strange situation actually a huge number of the riot police there in scenes getting a little bit chaotic certainly that's not going to be a welcome distraction

a tool for morse going in on an inside the conference and these tools continue of it's going to be very interesting to see if the friends of syria can overcome some of the major criticisms that have been leveled at them from all sides which is really that this is a group. white so it's going to be interesting to see whether they are actually able to deliver any of these tangible support that the syrian national council the opposition have been calling for after so sorry for her reporting live in istanbul thank you. meantime political analyst patrick henningsen so it's a good group of friends of syria's backing the opposition is not. only making things worse on the ground. it's unbelievable how it's got to this point where it seems ok to fund the opposition whatever form it is and let's not kid ourselves the u.s. and the u.k. have been backing guerrilla forces in syria for the last year that has been

happening that's been admitted by the u.s. state department it's been admitted by the u.k. foreign office and all the sudden they're backpedaling now saying that it's all you know nice arab spring underlip terry intervention and we're going to help the opposition it doesn't work if they want to help syria they need to engage the syrian government in diplomatic talks on neutral ground it's quite quite clear that president assad is not going to. you know accept the kofi annan peace plan as the western countries are still giving aid to the opposition to charge it's already been caught through proxy smuggling on xp over the border in jordan and also just arms going over the border in lebanon as you're coming from the u.s. the u.k. their allies in the region they're doing this through a third party. is coming here from moscow one hundred fifty killed more than four hundred injured by the result of clashes in libya in the past six days alone as former rebels and tribesmen battle it out the power the nation's government has now

broken just cease fire but in reality it has little power over the vast number of on the proofs left over from the revolution and libya's former prime minister who led the revolution against moammar gadhafi as a risk to libya might be taken over by extremists mahmoud jibril also says it's the result of nato abandoning the country after the former regime was toppled later this hour here on c.n.n. exclusive interview with your brill offering a frank look at the cost and reasoning behind they were about him. too many of his who have interests that can. and should be silenced photo of him who is trying to buy time. he sent to. us. one of them was bush who was sent to. providing some sense of. what he called when the solution. that he was killed with. the libyans who are the libyans of the

others but really don't know what they say is that there are too many parties who have interests that just keep silent for the. interview as in about twenty minutes time here in the guarantees or an arms race president appeared after the very clear choice to washington this week over its missile shield plans in europe but says the u.s. also announced similar systems for asia and the middle east to retreat measured f. and barack obama discussed the she would an international nuclear security summit in seoul and part of the private conversation accidentally went public.

to leaders exchange was captured by t.v. cameras word for word and it was seized upon by barack obama's republican rivals mitt romney even declaring russia america's number one enemy but a small faux lad on the and the russian bandwagon guy nature can reports their war cries aren't exactly resonating with the american voter. the run up to the presidential election in the u.s. . 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 its president elect you should remember. by the president represents a real threat to the. stability and peace of the world but that's in 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 olden days hollywood stereotypes and take a look at the calendar. but if you can go i would advise all u.s. presidential candidates to make a reasonable statement it wouldn't do them any home to do so and such if they would choose it's the year twenty twelve midnight and seventy's and you know the current leaders of the two countries may have long delayed the cold war to aggress but for some it's just too 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 by arming arming isolating threatening i want to be. i want to go to war with china these guys are ranchers and. and looking for ways to. to or to harm us of course should take military action it is unacceptable for iran to have a nuclear weapon but what is all of what the trigger happy candidate suggest on foreign policy actually happens i worry about the world in which romney became president because i think he would adopt a more militaristic foreign policy as world view is depicted in the sketch it's some kind of mystical and very unreal dream 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 to 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 we were regrettably win the election because too many americans are just plain scared of having someone like romney as their future leader i'm going to take our reporting philosophy are to. us republicans take a hard line stance on foreign nations presidential hopefuls and fronts are coming down hard on domestic issues still ahead for you here on out c in the wake of radical islamic terrorism on home soil kind of this push unconstitutional change with threats of arrests and people. plus fed up with street demos some of

muscovites launched their own protests against them we report on them and see rallies rally right here in the center of the russian capital. some of the biggest riots in decades swept across spain this week mass rallies backed a nationwide general strike as millions walked off the job to protest against more austerity dozens of people were injured in suing clashes and almost sixty arrested but the government remains under wanted announcing twenty seven billion euros worth of cuts the very next day it's one of the toughest budget strains introduced in decades which includes tax hikes and a salary freeze for public sector workers but economic analyst michael ross thinks that ultimately the measures just won't work. and if you ever heard of a politician who was promises came true or became reality in the future i mean a lot and what i can see is that the waters when want to make this kind of government is not only visited his peril it's also impossible when you

look at the private sector private sector is totally over debt more or less bankrupt when you look at the banks over there bankrupt central bank bankrupt government also manas bankrupt how can you implement an authority package in these circumstances so everybody will see it is a rule this won't work but what i what i see is that spain is the last nail in the euro zone coffin when politicians are putting your balls adjustment adjustment is such a nice word but it means in reality that people there have to become poorer when you are a government and you have to tell it to the people the people are feeling that they are becoming poorer you are in a big big difficulty this could easily lead to a domestic interaction and this could also trigger more problems in the other southern countries here in europe. i didn't addition to the deepening debt crisis

there are also growing concerns over soaring oil prices following the west's sanctions against iran france britain and the us all considering releasing oil reserves on to the market to drive down crude costs jamaal are getting from the national iranian american council believes the sanctions were just a knee jerk reaction with a cost only being felt now the real problem here is that the us and the e.u. have passed these on president saying sions without a real strategy or understanding of cons next we're sort of making this up as we go along and we're finding that the same 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 and watching r.t. french police carried out a series of raids against suspected islamic terrorists throughout the country netting nineteen arrests the crackdown comes just a week after mohamed merah a frenchman of algerian descent was shot dead by police in toulouse after he murdered seven people. sillier explains a fear of terrorism is playing a role in the nation's presidential race. the mom of marilyn's killed by police after thirty two hours seizure into lose 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 where as a background she can be really really need from anyone who regularly consults internet sites which promote tara or patriot or violence will be sentenced to prison any person going abroad for the purposes of indoctrination in terrorist ideology will be criminally punished sadat's every additional cycle since policy of stripping a foreign born criminals of their citizenship for their tightening border control saying there are too many foreigners in france ok only advocating the political change and it's from his view it's not a crime we have freedom of speech in france and they don't see. it's. was a french citizen any east family came to france a very long time ago so. obviously this kind of terrorism.

from inside french society it's not just something that is important from. release. and you cannot. take away french nationality from a french national this is not. the french constitution and then there's money in the 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 that 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 from the mentalists political religious groups who are killing our children a threat of islamic fundamentalism has been underestimated locally i think all that's been announced after these tragic events are proposals put forward solely

for the election 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 what was all of the growing number of immigrants in france about six million of whom are muslims is being labeled as a problem by some prominent figures of politicians are throwing around what they call solutions but the question is whether any of these policy ideas on immigration or security are realistic that are addressing an actual problem or simply the consequences of something more fundamental the core of the problem is a permit if you can go through it because what is the goal of all the problem there doesn't seem to be much consensus on that either just or cilia r t paris. well here in our city we always enjoy it when you get involved with us on our programming here on our website r.t. dot com we want to know what you think about the french crackdown on domestic islam ists so far more than half of you believe it's president sarkozy's pre-election move to pander to voters here for the numbers nearly one quarter think it's the

start of an unseen muslim witchhunt less than ten percent say it's a kneejerk response to the to live in shootings while thirteen percent believe it's an attempt to finally address the threat of terrorism on french soil if you are looking to audit or com you can still take part in our world wide poll. has slammed the u.s. over its decision to suspend food aid to north korea calling it an over reaction quote beyond the limit provisions were promised in return for the communist state halting nuclear and missile tests north korea has refused to hold back its plans to launch a satellite in mid april and is reportedly invited outside experts to prove it's doing it for purely peaceful purposes however the u.s. and south korea believe the launch is really a long range missile test ericus ruskin co-founder of the campaign to end the

korean war says washington is 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 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 a peace treaty to end the korean war finally and then i think these kinds of issues roll iranians. this is r.t. wealth before health that i can see action against britain's government after

parliament voted in favor of a controversial medical care reforms when or makers who voted yes have links to private suppliers switch stand to benefit leaving physicians and patients fearing for the future of free health care in the u.k. laura smith has more in a system 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 for today's national health service to play by profiteers the jewel in the u.k.'s 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 old but some say it's not those in need of care but rather those in power who are set to benefit. the shares in the company. and yet these vested interests are allowed to

vote on the health and social care bill with these private health interests which is a conflict of interest. institutional corruption at worst friends with benefits david cameron prime minister received two hundred ten thousand pounds for his party for nursing and care home tycoon popped out and made him a lot of 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 joel nash who's the chairman of care 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 one hundred 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 . through investments patronage 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 are circling already 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 don't damage the quality of care many feel disloyal and these did declare

their interest they should have been banned from the local government code of conduct says anybody with an interest must never take part in this to fix their interest issues told good driven it's to do with private enterprise use. profit says not to do with. inside westminster m.p.'s reportedly banned the table in jubilation when the reports passed outside the bell told the free health care. i do remember you can always log on to argue dot com for lots of other stories new comment for example of millions of course the world us switched the lights off for earth hour the event aimed at raising global environmental awareness and more incredible pictures on our website r.t. dot com. plus correctness or craziness new york is over fifty words from school with dinosaurs dancing and birthday all making the

blacklists sit out in the fall but are to talk. in recent months russia has witnessed all kinds of rallies for protests against the parliamentary and presidential election results to those in support of the author already use this sunday a whole new type of demonstration has taken place. went along to a protest against protests. they're angry tired cold hungry and they are mostly journalists who have spent the last goodness knows how many weekends covering the protests in moscow and whether or not they wanted to or like other protesters they couldn't just say no they had to be there they had to spend hours in the freezing weather and they had to listen to demands of people who have been basically saying down with everything there is so they organized a facebook initiative group and they got more than a hundred people in just under twenty four hours. to come to

a spot in moscow and protest the protest and understanding that hunger journalist is something you never want to deal with they brought kooky is the broad flower seeds and they didn't last very long because you know journalists do have families and that was one of the main slogans at the rally they would have families they want to see them as much as possible and they do not want to be outside again in the cold and snow listening to people voicing their concerns about something which they cannot really define that was their main point of the rally which ran down in moscow today and honestly i'm also kind of tired of it too so let's write it out and i'm going to head home and do what i wanted to do all these weekends i have a lot of things to catch up on as today. after we all are you know morning to come in just a couple of minutes seniors. her

mother. in a good speech. she. will

. be a mummy good luck with. the money and the money. coming up but i'm a little bit. of. the. machine would be so much brighter if you knew about some from feinstein freshening some of. these from stunts on t.v. .