the. beasts of the rich bryson if you. come from france to pressure these. stunts on t.v. dot com. the first group of u.s. marines arrive in australia as america moves in on the asia pacific region to challenge china's growing influence details from new york coming up. also ahead the debt burden as a greek pensioner shoots himself in front of parliament in athens amid a song ring suicide rate and growing financial desperation across the e.u. live comment on but coming up. russia warns against arming the syrian rebels peace efforts underway saying they can topple president assad and it will only lead to chronic.

hello and good evening from moscow it's eleven pm wednesday evening here now you're watching r t with me kevin owen and first the first u.s. marines have arrived in australia as america boasts its military presence in the asia pacific region more than two thousand personnel are said to be deployed there over the next few years and valves to america's military footprint in such countries as the philippines and singapore all in china's backyard it is more important brings you up to date than from new york. total of twenty five hundred american troops are expected to arrive. by twenty sixteen that this part of a bilateral defense agreement the two countries and now it's. part of that agreement also includes an increased presence of u.s. warships and military aircraft including the fifty two bombers to operate from

australia's bases but of course this is part of a bigger plan that you was president barack obama announced in january in which he said the u.s. has a new strategy of pivoting its defense to the asia pacific mr obama said the plan is aimed at countering china's growing military and economic influence he also said it would also counter potential attempts by beijing to block u.s. capabilities and areas such as the south china china sea. there are forty seven thousand u.s. troops stationed in japan twenty thousand american troops stationed in south korea with the u.s. maintains bases in both of those areas additionally washington recently announced plans to build a military defense shield in asia and the middle east clearly none of this news is making china any happy because all of this defense from the u.s.

is being built up in its backyard now back in january after president obama announced his quote unquote defense pivot plan china released a statement basically telling wording the u.s. should be careful with its words and its actions in a statement released by the ministry ministry of defense china calls america's accusations baseless and said it would closely observe the impact of america's military in the asia pacific so this latest step is not going to make china happy the very least we'll see what their response is the. but as we're reporting our help in reporting the u.s. is moving forward with building up its military presence in china's backyard a correspondent new york might have put ny out there a few times rather than correspondent thing to say as well he told us that beijing is well aware of what's going on it's and it won't put up with it there's only one

thing about this whole thing which is certainly if not arresting china or the other way around rather harassing the chinese know it they know this is the american culture all of the western pacific in the south china sea and they all have their counter measures in place of course china doesn't have an expansionist strategy in the south china sea look now they are facing a huge where some expansionist strategy in their own backyard so there are countermeasures is the basically defensive measures but it's not that the trainees needed somewhere is going to start attacking ports in the south china sea but this is what some of shrieks of the rhetoric on that's their wishful thinking actually that's the thing the puppy ask of james corbett to editor of the colbert report news website explained to us at r.t. why the asia pacific nations a siding with the u.s.

and not with china. it's a case of realpolitik and i think that there are certain governments that believe that they can they can benefit from this and they're likely to side with whoever is going to be. seems to be is going to be eventual winner in this type of confrontation so obviously at this stage america has a clear superiority when it comes to conventional naval assets for example little on cyber weapons and all of the other tools of warfare that are being deployed an unmanned aerial vehicles so i think the u.s. is going to be obviously dominant player here and that a lot of governments will she cute with the devil as it were even if they don't agree with all of the u.s. policies they'll certainly go along with it in order to get facts on the diplomatic side of. this is our team from moscow coming to you live my name's kevin hague's rejection of palestinian requests to investigate alleged israeli war crimes on their territory sowing doubt over the course impartiality now we've got more on

that coming up we're also reporting too from britain where how they get to pull is proving terminal but opinion swaying over how best to call time on the country's lethal brings drinking culture these days. next though struggling with money is proving to be an unbearable burden for a greek who shot himself dead in a square in central athens is just one of dative a string of suicides across the e.u. caused by financial desperation and the continuing harsh austerity measures as he's testarossa the reports from brussels. well on the bigger picture it is a symbol of the desperation on the street of the ordinary people across the e.u. who are suffering from all the a steady cuts in the financial difficulties other countries are going through at the moment now the seventy seven year old now before shooting himself in front of parliament alpha's has said that he would be leaving so as not to leave debt with his children and this is a sentiment that is called by a lot of people they may be suffering

a silently or they may not be protesting out of the streets or are killing themselves but it is certainly a sentiment that is reflected across the e.u. and it's not just increased this country is seeing a rise in the suicide rates but also in there have been a string of recent suicides directly linked to their financial problems we've seen a seventy eight year old woman who threw herself off of the balcony of her third floor flat and she said this was because she had said before that that this was because of the cuts in her pension this was the reason that her son had given to those who had been asking and this is again the interesting thing here is these suicides are directly linked to the financial crisis and this is a message that they're trying to get their leaders to understand those who are trying to are making these decisions for them and again austerity cuts are still being tried to push being pushed through by leaders of these countries in order to get their accounts in accordance with what we do you want to end the cycle of a sovereign debt crisis whatever you know greece is the latest target have received

bailout the eyes are still on the trees like. portugal the question being asked of them is why this is the next receive another be a lot richer country is going to go downwards spiral again and there are reports that the european commission of a showing of the possibility of a stagnation or another recession coming this year or in the near future and so it's a very it's clearly not the end of seeing the cycle of the spare parts of the measures and unfortunately this time around increase in suicides as well. as from sort of the. calling from brussels for us to talk more about the toll that it's taking on people sort of proudly is the executive director of the investment consultancy t.v. advisors rather patrick always good to have you on the program and throughout this whole thing we've always talked openly about. fiscal policy the big story the big picture what's going wrong what's not going right about it we often don't think about loved ones grandfathers grandmothers who are going through these awful

problems day by day this particular pensioner who committed suicide today left a note as we've been reporting that he refused to scrounge for food in the rubbish and how reflective is his situation of most the rest of the people in the country how many other people are going through this all for awful predicament now. well this is truly a tragedy kovan it's what unfortunately we were always concerned was going to happen not that the reality is upon us it does not make it any less stark this is a ghastly situation because of the whims of indus economically and continent politicians who believe and listen to equally incontinent and disorganized bankers who got too much money who beggared entire nations they are not by a factor at least seeing their own people forced to kill themselves in order to avoid over to it and that is an absolutely ghastly situation and unfortunately

everybody quite simply with politics and a huge number of the politicians within the european union not stand accused of the fact of glee leaving their citizens to starve to death or the greek finance minister to nothing to say about it he called the suicide on said agnes square shocking actually say that what can the government do about it though with the press intentions in the world do they have any other crisis revenue the other than these austerity measures that are now committed to keeping the money coming in oh look this is absolutely ridiculous state of affairs the greek government is bankrupt the greek government cannot afford to stay in the euro and pay its debts it must default ultimately that may be a terrible problem for a great many finance serious and investors but at the same time i have to say any bank that bought greek debt in the course of the last ten years was stupid so

making that absolutely clear the simple fact is greece must have thought on it it probably needs to leave the euro immediately it was deeply into its currency it is going to still have many problems but the truth of the matter is that when you do get to this sort extraordinary of. only this sort of extreme measure is going to be possible to resolve your situation and ultimately it really beggars belief that we have a greek politician the most highly paid politicians in the whole of the european union turning round and going oh well that's very sad when our constituents kill themselves when they themselves make fifteen five thousand euros our month without any difficulty whatsoever as a backbencher and b. which isn't enough to manage to pay for dozens of pensioners every month in new austerity greece of course patrick you say that and not me or i mean the problem is

of course not just in greece the supercell we've seen that there it is yesterday there's an elderly woman let her birth because a similar circumstances as is being reported the cuts i still bites and why can't we see why can't these people indeed see a way i heard other than this drastic measure well you know the tragedy of the situation is the political ask evening the said dear turold in sicily i mean clearly she trusted big government with her pension money and that's frankly an absolutely ridiculous thing to do in this day and age i'm a brit because governments are just not trustworthy within the european union they cannot be trusted to manage their own budgets and they consistently have not been able to mario monti's technocratic government can mean they have to balance the books make up pensions by twenty five percent it's absolutely ghastly and it's not hauling situation for anybody to be in a lot the same time at least to be fair to monti and his technocrat government they

are managing to turn round the italian economy but at the same time it's a terribly high price the peg let's face it we all read in our history books in the west how disgusting it was that started a lot of people to starve in the soviet union how ghastly is that but people in the european union today are being forced. to kill themselves in order to avoid liabilities. by not hauling inconsistency on government european union all the time we've been talking about this patrick over the last year or more to be said what you said at the time seemed very bleak very optimistic but unfortunately what you said did come true let's cast our minds back to twenty ten it was the suicide of it is the in man that triggered the arab spring this may be overhyping of so we get your thoughts today in greece we've seen a thousand people paying respects the victim of a stereotype how likely could that death today trigger something like kind of an

easy you spring. well let's put it this way the last thing we want to see you tell you further bloodshed but what we certainly want to see is not politicians but actually brick of government and we need some leadership in this whole organization and the think we've seen for the whole of the last two years while this tragedy has been on building and if i've been accurate well that's really very very sad because i have heard of you only on the whole thing but let's look at it this way what we need is leadership let's not see any more markers let's do something that solves the problem instead of leading to more summits more austerity and the ridiculous area you need fiscal union in the european union but i mean if you're asking me what is the potential here i think the problem lies with the european union the european union itself he's not i in mortal danger if it does not get its act together and unfortunately it's been behind this crisis it's been behind the ball

to wipe the course of the last two three five in fact all of the ten years or more since they created largely flawed your real project for example of a lot more to say about. it or not i'm afraid to go executive director of the investment consultancy devi advisors on the line there from poland they deserve so much. russia's accusing a group of western arab states who are supporting the syrian opposition of undermining peace efforts gulf ations of calling for weapons to be given to the rebels but says the opposition will never defeat the army and its armed to the teeth a middle east correspondent policy or as the latest details for you. these comments by the russian foreign minister sergei lavrov come just as the u.s. secretary of state hillary clinton has restraints to the united states position that they want the syrian president bashar assad to step down immediately against the backdrop of the ongoing peace talks clinton say that the u.s.

wants aside to step down in any situation and the sooner the better now at the same time we are witnessing increasing support for the opposition inside syria with the friends of syria rami pleading commitment and support to rebel fighters we're hearing from the gulf nations on qatar and saudi arabia that they are willing to pay several million dollars each month in salaries to rebel fighters the russian foreign minister sergei lavrov says all of this undermines peace if that's on the go those peace efforts of course initiated by the form even cheap coffee or nine lavrov says that they are hampering all peace if it's because they're encouraging the parties to engage in fighting and not engage in peace in response to the gulf nations who are called the rebel fighters to arm themselves so gillibrand had this to say yes. it's clear as day that if the opposition is armed to the chief it will not defeat the syrian armed forces but instead they'll be slaughtered mutual

killings for many many years we've heard from these syrian government that they have actually started implementing the conversations for the scorpion and peace plan that they have begun withdrawing the troops from more volatile cities with the troops on moving to the perimeter and in khan the cities we've actually seen some of the troops returning to the army bases but according to this cease fire implementation after a positive beyond the opposition will have forty eight hours in which they will have to cease their own hostilities and what we're hearing from the syrian regime is that while they were committed they needs to be the same kind of commitment coming forth from the opposition in terms of wanting to see this violence end. well apart from still if he's on the ground there's also a media war over syria to fed but reports of bloodshed that are difficult to verify i spoke to former soldiers here a news correspondent early high ship who told me a bit earlier how he got caught up in such a battle. we went to the borders between lebanon and syria and it was normal that

we should say what we are seeing. it was. obvious that there were militants answering from the borders to syria and clashing with the syrian army that was actually away from the borders like three kilometers about time we were able to spot the militants and we took some footage of those people and later on the channel refused to these pictures. where i was asked to forget about these militants and i was asked to leave the whole area back to beirut you know they were helping the heroes it's what the government wants a lot got around a lot of the just the size the is divided on both sides people are being misled by media on one side you know it's been it's kind of concentrating on showing the army as killing people and civilians and innocent people are surprised that cross across without showing that there are militants also fighting the army and killing

civilians from the other size those goes who support the syrian regime of dissent on the question of the media also was trying to show that there are only militants who are fighting the regime and there are not people who are asking for freedom and reforms and then the country. in egypt the islamist was live brotherhoods fielding its presidential candidate who is already pledging to push for shari'a law if in the country if you wins now about fifteen minutes from tonight crosstalk arguing whether islamic democracy can ever co-exist. in the way. america's so-called war on terror which effectively put the muslim prophet push the muslim brotherhood underground and. the party being banned except in officially in the political landscape but nonetheless bound. i would say i was just remembering my. own no no no no no no reason for the brotherhood has been underground for decades point out. of the last so i mean i'm not quite sure

where libya was going is going as far. the decision not to d.r.s. the russian passenger plane is now considered the most likely cause of monday's deadly crash in western siberia but aircraft came down just minutes after takeoff it killed thirty one of the forty three people on board including all the doctors are fighting still to try to save the twelve critically injured survivors investigators say the plane's engines were functioning when the plane hit the ground a three day period of mourning for the victims because now with the first few drills taking place today. the international criminal court turned palestinian requests to investigate alleged israeli war crimes on their lands the official cause of the rejection is that

palestine is not a un recognized state helper a co-founder of the israeli committee against house demolitions told us that because the shadow over the whole international justice system. the palestinians exist in a kind of a limbo because they're not a state they don't have access to all the instruments of international law or of the un system but at the same time. international law that doesn't apply to the occupied territories it's intended to protect them especially the fourth geneva convention is not enforced by the international community so on the one hand they don't have the instruments to protect themselves on the other hand the international read it doesn't accept its responsibility to afford protection for the palestinian problem for the palestinians is that occupation was only seen as a very temporary military situation maybe lasting one to three years until it's over this is a forty five year occupation and international law simply isn't geared towards

dealing with it so the fact that the palestinians aren't a state i think. completely destroys their chance to use international law and if in fact these millions of people are left without any to fancy or any ability to leverage israel through international law it certainly dense the credibility of the entire system more stories online of course including how to handle presidential prying. is a pleasure to speak to all of you. and to have a microphone that i can see. feel free to transpose to. those pesky microphones laughing after last week's incident when a rather sensitive conversation between him and president of bennett was caught on a heart turned on my more than on line also purpose great for

protesting on our website reporting on a heavy handed crackdown on american students who are demonstrating against skyrocketing education costs if you want to see more of that and get up to speed on that story too it's on our website. suffering a nasty hangover from a nationwide bargain basement binge low cost alcohol is being blamed for a spike in drink related deaths and lawmakers think tackling supermarket sales is the only solution but both the industry and the drink say price won't put them off the saudis either bet it explains. this is your average friday night now in britain 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 to go the wine. classic may be. fifty six

yeah tech bytes yeah. maybe a couple shots. fired maybe if they succeed it's this kind of heavy drinking that's being blamed for the soaring numbers of deaths from liver disease in the u.k. eleven and a half thousand people die each year from the disease twenty five percent more than just a decade ago according to medical data most of those deaths at down alcohol abuse so how much is too much the recommended daily limit is four units of alcohol so around two pints of beer that even if you drink in a night so. we binge drinking and according to experts seriously damaging your health even lease is nothing compared to what many get free come last orders are a very for. example. you can cope an amount six times more than what's considered safe

by alcohol advice critics where there is a very great need to address the alcohol misuse issue in the united kingdom the short and long term side of his 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 for shoes that need to be addressed then you have the longer term health issues which are issues right heart disease cancer liver disease the government blames supermarkets for selling booze rock bottom prices just twenty. pounds can buy you as many as forty cans of strong cider it now wants to ban these multi by discounts and impose a minimum price of forty pence per unit it will force supermarkets to effectively double their prices on the cheap drinks but the industry's adamant it's not cost that's causing the trouble the heaviest drink because people who drink problematic

levels of alcohol a least likely to be total drinking by price rises would influence a minimum unit price would do is raise the price for millions of ordinary consumers a little is a section of society likely to be holistic that supports those lowest income so it seems very unfair in a policy that's not actually going to be successful in tackling the problem drinkers at the moment that falls to the police punch drunk punch ups a familiar sight come closing time the government claims ending bargain boozing would instantly cut crime and messily reduce alcohol related deaths but with the bulk of binge drinkers already paying over the proposed minimum it's clearly not the temp it'll bar them from having another destructive night on the tiles michael bennet r t london. well from binge drinking in the u.k. to a very sober scene on some of the money markets now let's go to our business desk to be trees there hey hey karen what we're seeing right now actually is some kind of

a recovery on the market was very gloomy now the u.s. markets falling less than one does now look at it in a second in russia there was a nosedive on the market and it came from initially recent data from capital outflows now this data shows that russia has seen capital flow double in the first quarter of two thousand. last year reached around thirty five billion dollars that's almost half of what the country saw for the all of two thousand and eleven central bank hopes the trend will reverse as soon as may after the new government is formed. now let's take a look at how the r.t.s. on the nice excitedly ended wednesday's session and indeed a nosedive with the r.t.s. declining always three percent nice x. two hundred percent gross hydro on the mice a source of my hefty beating it was down three point six six percent a second look at those figures on the stocks. that's on rumors that basically that

sale of two billion dollars worth of shares to state bank to be postponed the n.k.v.d. was much better than the market that's after announcing their profits increased forty one percent in two thousand and eleven and after visor was one of the you again as it was up one percent as it started producing the new model the law goes the first model since it's a partnership with us. now saying with the auto industry russia's car assembling a holding after top canadian auto parts producer magna are considering creating a car making cluster in russia to achieve this company's plan to set up twenty one new plants in the country's northwest. rise moved to other stock markets here in the u.s. as i mentioned it's getting a bit better the dow jones is now down just a point nine percent used to be down under half nasdaq still one half percent lower yahoo is cutting two thousand jobs added pressure to the sector in general over in

europe a lot of work gloomy info coming out survey sicking the outlook will be economy does not look optimistic poor no stimulus coming from the fed no change for the interest rate in inflation of forecasts the two percent to g.d.p. forecast to decline point one percent bad at the spanish auction all this is that in pressure and take a look at this still declining of course on a higher dollar a lot of money is pumping out of commodities and out of stocks and into the greenback. and that's it from the business team for now eight twenty moscow time on thursday join my colleague will be. thank. you.