on the. video on demand. an omission speeds now with the palm of your. machine. the prospect of years of war and mutual destruction russia's foreign minister warns against arming syrian rebels saying it won topple president assad but only lead to a protracted and bloody conflict. putting its military muscle the first contingent of u.s. troops land in australia as america looks to establish its dominance across the asian pacific and keep tabs on china. and calls for last orders on cheap supermarket alcohol in the u.k. with british drinking on the rise the government vows to ban multi-byte discounts in an effort to curb the growing problem.

but from our studios in central moscow you're watching r t with me and he said now i could have you with us our top story the friends of syria group is actively harming kofi and its efforts to resolve the syrian conflict in a peaceful way so says russian foreign minister sergei lavrov he believes the group's plans and kludges only encourage violence and are aimed at persuading the rebels not to join peace talks and says the regime in damascus directs its forces back to base in preparation for an april tenth cease fire all of slayer reports. eighteen united nations personnel have songs of arriving in syria and this is to pave the way. to cease fire agreements now that agreement was broken. by the former u.n.

chief kofi annan it includes some six points and among those points are the withdrawal of syrian troops from cities the laying down of arms on both sides and also the establishment of humanitarian corridors we have heard from the syrian government that they've begun a troop withdrawal that in the more volatile cities their troops have moved to the perimeter and inequalities and the troops have actually moved back to their bases and all of that coming to leak ahead of this april fifteenth agreement but at the same time fighting does continue in several syrian cities fighting on both sides so it is raising alarm bells in terms of just how effective these preliminary reeves will be and we haven't yet heard any word from the opposition they will have some forty eight hours to lay down arms and of course the syrian government is making the point that if the opposition do not come to the party and here to this side of the green and when they can be in a real peace in syria we've heard from the united states if they threatening the regime with a u.n.

security council action the american ambassador to the united nations used words such as urgent and serious consequences and here the referral was to the syrian government is greater and here today part of the cease fire agreement there was no mention made of what would happen to the rebels and to the opposition this comes just days after a friends of syria conference was held and that saw the united states and other western and arab countries pledging their support to the opposition we've heard from countries like saudi arabia and qatar pledging some one hundred million dollars and there was talk of this money being used to pay salaries to provide equipment as well as other support for the rebels in their opposition fighters and this has received lots of criticism in the international community the russian foreign minister sergei lavrov said these moves were detrimental and would not lead to any kind of peace plan he said that even if the opposition were armed to the teeth they would not succeed in overthrowing the. syrian regime of bashar assad and

the result will only be fully fledged civil war there are also save that these international bodies were pushing the opposition away from peace and discouraging negotiations again making the point that they would be no peaceful resolution that movie violence such as these by the friends of syria. well for more on the upcoming ceasefire and how the friends of syria's actions might affect the conflict to benjamin shirk that's what space independent researcher who joins us live on the line up from. so germany and i think you might be in in zurich switzerland thanks for being with us now that assad has seemingly begun to pull back the military coup we have faith that we might actually see a cease fire after a year of this fighting that's going on the ground. transfer. cease fire unfortunately don't look so good not because of president out of sight but because

of foreign powers such as state us and the so-called friends of other so-called other friends of syria who are publicly supporting the insurgents who. supply them with money and arms etc. obviously in the same time. this supposed to. the arms so. obviously the insurgents will go on with their attacks and provoke comes reactions from from other sorts. which will be to provoke pro-immigration you know mark the u.n. looks set to launch its monitoring mission very soon do you expect it to be impartial bearing in mind of course that was one of the criticisms leveled at the last arab league observer mission that we saw. i don't think that. mr

seems to try to find a peaceful solution but you have to keep in mind that kofi annan is one of the fathers of the so-called responsibility to protect doctrine so it's quite likely that he is involved in this whole game as well to you know to to to present the syrian government as. responsible for the one with two i was responsible for violence. the foreign minister sergei that bro has had some very harsh words for the friends of syria group which he says are pushing the rebels towards violence are his concerns valid do you think how do you see the situation in terms of this group and progress. i think mr lovell statements are quite accurate because. how could we expect that the armed insurgents we know put down their arms when they get so much support from from the outside from saudi arabia from qatar from turkey u.s.

and so on. obviously the foreign powers working towards regime change and our only hope is that russia and china. maintain their position to foreign intervention and hopefully prevent. western powers from from attacking syria. how the prince of syria group has pledged one hundred million dollars worth of salaries kill the rebels they say it's you know nonmilitary militarized version of support but in fact i mean won't that mean that the opposition fighters would now have something to lose cash if peace was reached. yes stable to. the cashier and. they getting so many singers. so many forces from the outside are on their side why would they have an interest to do two of make a compromise with the government everyone is blaming the government for the violence they will increase violence and grow all kinds of actions in order to. cause

foreign intervention that syria's rebels are alternate taurus they divided we thought the same thing in libya where you had one representative opposition council in the n t c in syria you have four competing once a some might say the situation is in fact worse how does that bode for the country's future if the rebels do in fact when and author leaves office. where we saw what happened in afghanistan after. u.s. intervention we saw what happens to iraq we saw what happened to libya state that is falling apart now and if if. syrian national council of so-called free syrian army will actually succeed to take over then we have we will most likely face. very serious syria or in syria with all these different factions fighting each other like the muslim brotherhood salafi extremists representatives

of certain minorities etc all right benjamin sat in about its first space research are live with us and with us on the line. thank you very much for your input thank you. well turning to egypt now could the muslim brotherhood's attempts there to install their own man as president who dampener on the country's drive for freedom artie's peter the belt challenges his cross-talk out on whether is calm and democracy can coexist full program on for you next hour here's a preview. in the wake of america's so-called war on terror which effectively put the muslim brotherhood push the muslim brotherhood underground and . to the part of. except officially in the political landscape nonetheless. early oh no no no no no no reason for the brotherhood has been underground for decades

going back to the idea of going out of the nozzle so i mean i'm not quite sure where interview is getting is going to get. a group of two hundred american marines have arrived in australia on a six month training deployment as the us both as its military influence in the asia pacific and washington is to establish a vocational presence of up to twenty five hundred personnel there in the coming years and although australia's government says they'll be no military bases set up in the country some analysts claim the current training hobs are not much different . this is an aspect of american based school may not have the legal status of the base in mind it had twenty thirty years ago but eventually what it is the nicest place is why about china. taking moves to change and to counter

that. is i. feel. a need to take military action a little so i can stumble into that more. sunshine in which case of course the countries in the region will australia as. the other countries which are close and so staying with american bases will get. well america expand its worldwide presence is also trying to secure the world wide web u.s. congress examines and new our aim to tackling cyber terror freedom activists warn it could become a license for snooping by the state. you can government is calling for an end to cheap deals on alcohol and an effort to curb binge drinking they say bargain prices in supermarkets are encouraging people to drink more but others say increasing prices won't how authorities ivor van it reports the

consequences could be fatal. this is either a bridge friday night now in greece and it's not yet midnight but many people have already drunk well over the limit of what's considered binge drinking from now on i drink about two thirds of lines on the classics. fifty six yeah ten pints yeah. maybe a couple shots. fired for being maybe fifty sixty it's this kind of heavy drinking that's being blamed for the soaring numbers of deaths for a liver disease in the uk a eleven and a half thousand people die each year from the disease twenty percent more than just a decade ago according to medical data most of those deaths are down police so how much is too much well the recommended daily limit is for use of alcohol so around

two points of being that even if you drink well you know it's so points of beer that we binge drinking according to experts seriously damaging your health but even lease is nothing compared to what many get three come last orders. for more. bombs of people and some i have a few. of my view shots example. and you can. an amount six times more than what's considered safe by alcohol the voice critics well there is a very great need to address the are called misuse issue in the united kingdom the short and long term side of is on the short term you know the issues around getting weight getting in trouble potentially putting yourself at physical risk or your violence or something along those lines those are all short term issues that need to be addressed then you have the longer term health issues which are issues around heart disease cancer liver disease the government blames supermarkets to selling

booze that rock bottom prices just twenty pounds can buy you as many as forty cans of strong cider it now wants to ban these multi buy discounts and impose a minimum price of forty pence per unit it will pull supermarkets to effectively double their prices on the cheap piece drinks but the industry's adamant it's not cost that's causing the trouble the heaviest drinkers people who drink problematic levels of alcohol a least likely to be to price rises in front of the minimum unit price would do is raise the price for millions of ordinary consumers and if there is a section of society likely to be harnessed it is the poor it's those on the lowest income so seems very unfair on a policy that's not actually going to be successful in tackling the problem drinkers at the moment that falls to the police that punch drunk punch ups a familiar sight come closing time the government claims ending bargain boozing

would instantly cut crime and massively reduced alcohol related deaths but with the both binge drink is already paying over the proposed minimum it's clearly not the term it'll bar them from having another destructive night on the tiles rather bennett. well remember we have many more stories that you might catch your eye on our website our t. dot com here's a look at what find out for you there today an arms scandal in india linkletter. lenard leeds reveals the country's defiance is our true week billions of dollars spent on weaponry. plus dodging our money trying to find out how russian agent and friend played how chapman was getting close to a member of president obama's cabinet read more at r t v dot com.

i buy this decision not to spray a passenger plane with antifreeze was the most probable cause of monday's air crash in western siberia that's the belief of investigators who are examining data from the black box flight recorders the aircraft hit the ground just minutes after takeoff with only twelve out of forty three onboard managing to survive it was also revealed that the plane's engines were functioning up until the last moment an official three day period of mourning for the victims has begun with the first funerals taking place today. a new bill for internet security is finding greater support among u.s. lawmakers that would allow enhanced information gathering to combat fiber attacks and terrorism but freedom activists say it could lead to wiretapping of private communication by the state party is going to can explores washington selective support internet freedom. the u.s.

government continues spending millions of dollars to support freedom of the internet around the war but is it freedom for all we switch to many has become the symbol of freedom has been under fire from u.s. officials and lawmakers because we teach published documents which embarrass the american government in many ways we can reach becomes the enemy the u.s. has reportedly issued a secret indictment against julian assange the head of the website which leaked hundreds of thousands of documents revealing embarrassing details about wars in iraq and afghanistan five major u.s. financial institutions as we said master card pay pal western union and the bank of america have tried to economically strangle weak elites by blocking donations to the web site until recently peter van buren his service of foreign service officer of the state department he says he was fired over the book and the blog that he wrote the butt of failure of u.s.

policies in iraq and stated warming since two thousand and eight has spent seventy six million dollars overseas on internet freedom giving tools and support bloggers and journalists and online people around the world particularly in countries that we have difficulties with at the same time the state department has spent all that time and all that money supporting those bloggers it has found internet freedom to be inconvenient in the form we can leak so just work just as hard and spend probably more money trying to shut you know free speech but it opposes while supporting free speech but it feels furthers america's own political goals overseas we call that a partnership but it's not just a leaking website is that the u.s. is after but also there's sources critics say this administration is embark on an unprecedented campaign against whistleblowers but in this culture with this administration is going after whistleblowers in a president way we all have an obligation to protect our sources i have to say that i myself i'm really nervous about the safety of some of the people there. i talked

to as a journalist the cutlass national security i'm talking all the time with people that work in the intelligence the military community use of a shockwave through the community while trying to stifle inconvenient leave said home the u.s. perceives the internet as social networking platforms as major tools for spreading democracy and spends millions of dollars to help people in the middle east and china get around here and block the firewalls at the same time ironically enough american companies provide bahrain saudi arabia and kuwait with the technology to effectively block websites a lot of the tools of control that are used by governments are provided by american company but given citizens or corporations for better or worse talk about profit as their motivation the government over however the american government talks about freedom and democracy as its motivation when in fact in many ways you can see in the opposite direction some argue that left uncontrolled the export of surveillance

inside blocking tools by american companies could undermine beer and everything the same way as arms exports undermine peace initiatives as far as u.s. government efforts to secure your air freedom there seem to be two kinds of freedoms freedom that they encourage and freedom that they punish but is there such a thing is too freedoms and then a strict reporting from washington party. well the prime cybersecurity law comes hard on the heels of the stop online piracy act and protect i pay act which both failed because of public outrage kind of berman from the center for democracy and technology believes the new bill may share their fate as it's a basic infringement of privacy. essentially what the bill does is it creates a structure whereby private companies are encouraged to monitor for cyber threat information that goes across their networks and then share that information with the government doesn't specify to whom in the government that information should be shared but the structure of the bill all likelihood would be that it would be

shared primarily with the national security agency or another component of the department of defense so we have a number of concerns with something like this that creates sort of a vast hole in the privacy law to allow government to receive those kinds of information i think one of the lessons that we learned in the reaction to it. is that when congress tries to legislate on the things that are going to be a fact internet users experience the internet users are going to pay attention and bills like congressman rogers information bills on congress the definitely could affect in a very serious way the internet experience and so we know people are starting to notice. it's twenty one minutes past the hour let's have a look at some top stories from around the world and serbian president has announced he's just stepped down to pave the way for early elections next month in

which he's set to run again the move is seen as a means of boosting his chances of returning to office pro e.u. tabish is likely to face a strong challenge from nationalist candidate thomas college which made this six with with made this explosion say the probable date of the poll. six people have been killed after a bomb went off in northwest pakistan near the afghan border the government official and a government official said the device was planted inside of their own civilians in the khyber region have been repeatedly targeted by militants in recent years. french police have launched a new wave of raids across the country arresting ten islamist suspects actually on orders from president nicolas sarkozy that follows the killing of seven people by mohamed arar and al qaeda inspired extremist circusy is currently gauged in a bitter presidential campaign and is valid to crack down on radicalism in the country. more than three days of nonstop u.s.

backed air bombardments in south yemen has left at least forty three suspected al-qaeda militants death last month washington intensified its support for yemeni government airstrikes kills insurgents and civilians charles smith the american institute on yemeni studies believes the u.s. is playing with fire by getting involved in yet another conflict. what is the determination of who is a legitimate target not. just because the united states has declared it. is a military target how do you determine what you are if you are a few issues with what determines your condition but i think you know the danger is that the united states will be drawn into a counterinsurgency operation and i think that's where we're headed if there may be no distinction between you know somebody who's a terrorist or you know states. and you know somebody who says or does bring in

a counterinsurgency inside of you know a very dangerous precedent. let's get the latest from the business that's katie joins us with the latest markets and all the rest of the news from the financial world kate absolutely i'll get stuck in and he so what we're seeing today is missing a lot of his son in asia we've got europe down as well we've got u.s. futures also pointing to the south side why because the u.s. federal reserve signaled less of a need to stimulate the economy with one stiff easing the stimulus that's really affecting the markets today is always having a domino effect that we've seen all day and that's very much playing through to the russian markets let's have a look at how they're faring this hour they remain in the red dress and that's what they are right now this hour got the artist in the mix it. into their second percentage point in negative territory and there's also another issue we've counted out the i know i say a lot here i sound like a broken record but it is the main thing and what we saw we saw. double in the

first quarter of twenty twelve and that's compared with the same period last year reached around thirty five billion dollars that's almost half of what the country saw for the whole of two thousand and eleven all the central banks are expecting and this is the result once the government is put into place it is certainly be monitoring that for sure we always do here. it's something we always keep track of now we've got all stocks to look at see if indeed it's still down. to two and a half percentage down now and then in the red number i had a dispute with one of the minority shareholders essential part of a major australian iron ore company that was that was stopped in its tracks by the russian who said we've also got asked as asked about as well they are getting a close not just on their own today but this to the positive territory and that's

that they knew most of their first call with the joint venture this is our society is that we've also got the current is to look at the ruble is indeed still mixes performing well against the u.s. dollar. against the european currency this out of the euro dollar as well that's still struggling one thirty one seventy five of the trade is currency. the trade is favorite pair for the south that's what i want to say is in the summer over the european markets to look at this is an interesting one today i mentioned that down we've got ranks i'm on it is really taking a hit today we've also got the e.c. be meeting as well now. they're going to be enforcing any more stimulus of the right are likely considering that i'll give the president a set that you won't be cutting officials any slack we know they've been intervening a lot recently let's have a look at oil all the headlines would rather quiet lately but i was reading something just now which i think is rather interesting the average dollar basic

national oil corporation which actually i by the government have raised their official selling price for march shipments in all four grades of oil sands an interesting one to watch right now though we've got the crude prices down at this hour along with the topic of natural resources let's talk about the rough stuff despite all the efforts of the russian government to cut natural resource dependency local businesses are getting even. more addicted to results now a poll by the national agency for financial studies says this was seen among small and medium sized businesses the agency has polled people around two thousand in toto and fifty two percent said woman two prices was the most important factor for their companies that's compared to forty seven percent for last year so it's certainly remains a problem and something a bit more funds talk about probably a property i.p.o. could take place in the russian market as soon as this mom the country's top

sparkling wine maker says they're preparing to offer ten percent of their shares another company estimates itself out one hundred million dollars. caney so that's how the markets are looking at for this as i say a global selloff read across the board all right many thanks for that katie will be back you'll be back i should say i'm looking forward to it next hour we're going to take a short break here in r.t. and i'll be back with the headlines stay with us. the bigger.

the birth mother. the bigger. the speed. with. the blame. the bigger.