which is what he was and we. we want to present. something. tonight on artsy russian businessman big boobs await sentencing in the united states he faces life behind bars for alleged gun running what is this season is and are expecting that. sentence to be handed down in a couple of hours time we've got the latest for you this hour though also coming up in the program the u.n. security council calls on the syrian regime to pull out troops by the april tenth deadline and a full ceasefire on both sides in the following forty eight hours give us a story or across for you this hour. plus sky high a scandal for rupert murdoch as his british t.v. news network admits allowing journalists to hijack private e-mails.

their very good evening of watching r.t. coming here live from moscow with me kevin no it's now just a little bit after eleven o'clock at night here our top story american prosecutors are seeking life imprisonment for russian businessman vic to boot he's convicted of arming terrorists and conspiring to kill u.s. citizens a court is set to announce a little later his sentence on thursday let's go live to new york artie's innocence . and i see a high just hours a mansion until the sentences announced what is that sentence likely to be what are people saying what are we expecting. come in like he said forty five year old

russian air cargo businessman victor boot is expecting to learn his destiny in a manhattan federal court a little bit later today we are expecting the sentencing hearing to kick off in about an hour and a half and what victor boot is looking at here is from twenty five years to a life sentence behind bars the twenty five years is a minimum amount of time he can receive for the charges being brought against him and a life sentence is what the prosecution is demanding it's important to keep in mind that the defense and richard good himself continue to maintain his innocence they continue to say that what the prosecution is asking for is quote a disgrace and it's really something that we're going to have to wait and see what comes out of this because it's definitely two very different positions as the defense says all charges against picture good should be dropped and as you remember victor good was arrested lured in by de undercover u.s. agents in thailand in march two thousand and eight was extradited to the u.s. two years later regardless of the fact that thai courts found him not guilty and

then he was found guilty on all four charges brought against him in november last year those charges include conspiring to kill u.s. citizens as well as conspiring to cooperate with a party group of terrorists by the united states but not by the united nations and many other countries. who continue to protest his innocence service to see all the real issues left for him and his defense team. you know kevin it really looks like those options are very few after the sentencing comes down we are expecting for appeals to come through regardless of what the sentencing will be but the problem in this case is that it looks like the tribute has lost this case in the court of public opinion a very long time ago if you remember there is a book out called the merchants of death there is a movie a hollywood blockbuster made with nicolas cage staring in it's called the lord of war and we know that the prosecution has been using these terms in the courtroom to the extent that the judge had to ban the use of these nicknames to avoid pressuring the jury and with the alleged hundred million dollars that the united states spent

on this operation relentless i mean it's called operation relentless for a reason the u.s. has been trying to hunt this man down for years it looks like the outcome for victor good today is not going to be a positive one but by any means and vitter bush himself a surprise describes himself as a hunted deer he calls him in his case politicize and says he wants to leave this country where he's never stepped foot before and go home ok and since richard. we are expecting as you said next couple of to get it you'll get across to the noble cause in new york thanks for the well let's get some more common. we're joined by u.s. law dogs on the line from who stood very good to see you tonight mr mcneil as we heard if you could hear what was being said was you know yourself prosecutors one boot life in prison how likely is that sentence do you think. i think it's likely

under the federal statute mr boot is looking at a mandatory minimum of twenty five years to life but he could get twenty five or get life or anywhere in between but there's an overlay on the statute the federal sentencing guidelines and those guidelines call for a sentence of life i think that based upon what i've heard what i've read distribute is very likely looking at a some it's not like ok but of course part of this saying that he kind of lost in the court of public appeal if you like but of course that shouldn't not it doesn't matter what the public says it matters what the legal people say and what the judge says he defends his defense stressing all the time that he's innocent and will appeal what are the chances of an appeal we had pretty grim from our correspondent there well within fourteen days from today those are calendar days so starting tomorrow would be day one within fourteen days he must file a properly prepared notice of appeal that appeal would be filed with the second

circuit court of appeals. briefs would be submitted by the government or by the defense and probably in about a year or so we'll know what the second circuit court of appeal says with regard to distributes appeal so this is going to be a very long and drawn out than in what has already been a long drawn out case of course and a very controversial one now that to boots wife spoke to us she said the no one was looking for of until the u.s. decided it wanted in this instance of what she had to say. but i think it was a long period of eight years from two thousand and one to two thousand and eight and have there been any proof that he was really involved in some illegal activities at the un russia and in support would have certainly known about it and would have done something but in reality nobody did anything nobody was really looking for victor they all claimed they were looking for him but they did nothing

he wasn't hiding he was openly living in russia under his real name. group's wipe out of the douglas why did washington want this particular man so badly above many others as well i think it's because the u.s. government believe that mr pook was a major arms trafficker had been doing so for a number of years i'm not saying that he was the jury said that he did it to question before the judge he is what sort of a senate's mr blewitt is going to receive the federal government the u.s. government takes a very aggressive approach extraterritorial like if someone is in london wire transfers a sum of money to an individual and early on and unbeknown to them the money kings through citibank to new york that pinging that touching of u.s. jurisdiction is sufficient jurisdiction for the united states government to charge both of those individuals with money laundering both facing extradition proceedings

if they both lose they're looking at up to twenty years of parole twenty years without parole as the pricing of a federal judge in manhattan u.s. government decided they wanted him they were able to sue the manufacturer in my view jurisdiction not illegally the form of an craftsman where they were able to pull mr boot into the jurisdiction of the u.s. courts that placed him in extradition proceedings by way you. thailand and had him extradited to the united states and thus we see the outcome of the jury decision and will now see what the judge says with regard to what a sentence is going to be alright thanks him so much american lawyer douglas mcnabb the joining us live on the line from houston and we're expecting as been mentioning that sentence to be declared handed out in the next couple of hours of the covering it live here on moscow. my pleasure still to come this hour the

muslims on a mission to make an impression islamic groups including the muslim brotherhood who post of all the jihad go to capitol hill in order to boost their image relations with the u.s. . the u.n. security council is calling on damascus to meet the april tenth deadline to pull back troops for the full cease fire on both sides in the forty eight hours which follow that president assad says he's already withdrawing the military from certain areas but the opposition claims are still fighting a war for the middle east correspondent paula slayer. the united nations has given its formal backing to the peace forward by the former u.n. chief kofi annan on thursday the united nations security council issued a statement on syria in which it pushed all the syrian president bashar assad to it here to his commitment and told the united nations that syria had pledged to cease all kind of movement towards population centers he also said that he was in contact with the opposition and urging them to stop fighting at the same time he called for

both sides and so political world now on tuesday also a united nations team arrived in syria they will be rain the groundwork for a observer mission which is to come and then also preparing the scene for the april tenth deadline now that is the deadline according to a man's hand we also know that following that they found him be forty eight hours for the opposition to lay down arms with a final deadline being on april twelfth at six am now the syrian regime has indicated that it has already begun preparing the ground work for observing that deadline it says that it has started moving its troops out of volatile cities where they are moving towards the perimeter and in the much calmer cities its troops have already withdrawn with drawn to the barracks but the opposition claims that fighting is continuing in damascus and in other centers and that the fighting is actually getting worse there certainly is

a lot of skepticism with relations with both sides as far as bashar assad goes there is skepticism that he will continue with his troop withdrawal and actually meet this deadline and then escape this isn't being voiced by countries such as russia particularly amid calls for arming the opposition and rebels and that follows a friends of syria meeting that so countries like qatar and saudi arabia pledging millions of dollars to pay the salaries of rebel fighters and at the same time we heard from the united states a pledge that if it would provide communication equipment so there is a lot of skepticism as to whether or not the deadline for the cease fire will be made and indeed whether or not there is political will to actually adhere to it. fall asleep or middle east correspondent britain's sky news t.v. networks admitted it authorized journalist to hack into private e-mails on two separate occasions but the broadcaster which is part of rupert murdoch's media empire said his actions are actually in the public interest bennett's across the

story in london. well sky news is claiming what it did was in the public interest because the emails that hank although they belong to a members of the public they were private they were those of suspected criminals and it's admitted actually it's on two separate occasions both times authorizing a reporter a reporter was authorized to hack e-mails by a senior executive on the editorial board now that defense of public interest may be valid in some media cases for example to do previously but it's not valid here packing private e-mails with members of the public is in fact a criminal offense sky news would be in breach of the computer misuse act and for that particular law the public interest defense is not in fact valid so be very interesting to see what the police do here because it's up to them to decide whether anyone actually gets charged for this sky news has tried to diffuse the situation by saying any information it did glean from these hacked e-mails was neither published nor was it broadcast however the information was clearly used as

a basis for a number of stories published on its website at the time almost over four years ago now it's obviously further in embarrassment heat on the murdoch empire here which is really through the mud in the u.k. last year in the wake of the phone hacking scandal that resulted in the closure of one of his biggest newspapers here the news of the world for widespread criminal activity which is illegal phone hacking of course and the ramifications of that scandal are still being felt here james murdoch stepped down earlier this week from being chairman of news corp the. overall company b. sky b. the sky news parent company is already under investigation by off com the british broadcasting watchdog to do with news corp the shareholding in the company and with the phone hacking scandal news corp tried to downplay it to begin with they said that the illegal activity only extended to one rogue reporter at that news paper

however that was soon proven to be false it was a lot more widespread than they originally let on and that will be the question asked now sky news was this really a one off or was it more widespread. creaks of mourning the pensioner who shot himself dead in front of parliament in athens seventy seven year old retired pharmacist m e trysts christoulas left a suicide note accusing the government cuts of destroying his livelihood his death triggered clashes hundreds gathered on syntagma square to lay flowers my lip candles and then violence erupted as groups of protesters hurled full bombs at the police and in responding to t.v.'s athens has been steadily slashing pensions and salaries one of the same time raising taxes to secure e.u. and i.m.f. bailouts greece has now extended to the deadline for the last part of the bond swap deal which is leaving private investors shoulder massive losses economic analyst nick scratches told us the cuts policy needs of major we think he thinks. but this

points inside we have about a third of the population in greece living underneath the poverty line and we've got about a million people employed and probably half a million kids are really done very well with all all we need is something like this to catalyze opinion and send us into deep reflection i think the more austerity cuts horizontal cuts to pensions public sector wages and tax increases are an absolute nightmare it's like putting a band rate secret on a very strict diet it's going to backfire what we really need here is more structural reforms some sensible privatizations to clamp down on waste and corruption and actually did the very rich to pay their share as well because at the moment it's be an employed people it's the pensioners and it's the middle classes that are suffering while the people that have stashed away close to a trillion overseas have gotten away with it. so those are next crackers europe's

money troubles are explained now lies on our website r t dot com while you're there to if you get a minute also discover whether dog could be closing on greece as germany seeks to bring back border controls in europe to stop the tide of illegal immigrants flooding through slack greek checkpoints story we're covering online tonight also a california college costs driving students there to a quiet protest but nonetheless they got back was great in the face anyway the story in full on our website party. senior members from islamic groups including the muslim brotherhood are in washington to try and boost their image on relations with the united states it said of the first post revolution presidential election in egypt next month where political battles are already heating up i spoke to frank salvato from the american think tank on freedom and national security told me washington should be careful of who would be friends. the white house you know we would hope that they're looking at it best case scenario but they need to be

a little bit more cautious about the worst case scenario and that includes arming rebels in syria the arming of and aiding of rebels in libya when in fact we knew that they had ties to radical islamist groups and especially and specifically al-qaeda when you're talking about trying to divide the islamic world in the arab world it's a very hard thing to do. you won't see ready allies for the west especially in some of the. i'm going to use the road for lack of a better word regimes that have taken over in some of these countries that have experienced the arab spring they're not friendly to western culture or western ideals although they might like the financial backing that would come you see a lot of these the distractions leaning towards the installation of shari'a law is something that is paramount in their constitutions so to try and ally with someone who is putting sharia law in place especially when it's so antithetical to our us

constitution. is truly in the air and that. two decades ago some of the start of europe's bloodiest military conflict since the second world war the bosnian war and the breakup of the film you can style they have reignited ethnic conflicts between muslims and so over four years around one hundred thousand people were killed more than four million with displaced let's talk about this and i would be in the story bush about it he's on the line from washington d.c. good evening you've just returned from bosnia south twenty years after the conflict divided the nation other people feel that today. there ironically still trapped in the conflict in a sense it's always ninety ninety two with their. political option in syria. our war supported it is still there and the teacher. it is one thousand nine hundred two engine haven't changed much moved on since even

more has been twenty years at the time of course you could slavia was falling apart thousands of people were dying i guess somebody had to step in and try and sort of the big question though was was it right that it was nato stepping in. well there is a myth about bosnia that it was a concept that ran rampant on its own and at the west had to step in and stop it in fact there was a bosnian peace process there had actually been results there was a constitutional irq we meant a compromise between the ruling parties of rivers and the communities and everything was set for a peaceful resolution of the crowd because of brazenness and then according to you you were suggesting when you said information the american ambassador stepped in council didn't wasn't part of these even egged on you reject any agreement and go away. having been promised american backing which is what ended up happening in this week or sedated the war in really the u.s.

western media have been involved from the very beginning it's just that. all minty in a conflict was gradual had to shift the goalposts so gradually so that by the time you got involved ninety nine sides openly and all that you really push it and they've gone in in one thousand and two everybody would say there was a clear violation of international law it was nato first combat operation that was the first look at the now the war ended but nato has peacekeepers are still there how would you assess their record in the balkans. well as far as the body and he's keeping walker a ship was remarkably successful but then again there wasn't much of a problem with it to begin with. that was negotiated in ohio and signed in paris in one thousand nine hundred five it was a national compromise and any attempts to actually me naked war after about a year have been thwarted on the ground very discreetly and there really hasn't been much of a need for

a peacekeeping force but in kosovo for example the board started mentioning tonight and you want to picture again in june it has lasted better since. the nato presence has been absolutely disastrous he was in prisons in view of anywhere up to sixty thousand peacekeepers. we've had a massive at one hundred fifty thousand plus people displaced from their homes destruction of churches description of destruction cemeteries in terror villages in greece columns on the scale of kristallnacht taking place in two thousand and four and need a peacekeeper sippin either unwilling or unable to do anything about this so peacekeeping record is the size of the mix and allegations that there's a bias there that they have been taking sides as well i waited and who should be there to keep the pace all those hot spots. well usually you see when he's curious little helmets and we raised it were a little sister pcp's it was bosnia that changed that because both need

displacement of to you went throughout the conflict western governments would sabotage you want if. possible missions and not enough resources and going to you when would you understandably feel it's the old world at least this media and force itself is a peacekeeping force and from the asking it on words it's the disunity responsibility to intervene in interference reasons we don't actually do in peace think cian changes. nation building. ok in a bush knowledge serbian store and talk to us from washington d.c. thank them so much. i was too and remade central russia slashed their wrists in protest of the reinstatement of sacked prison governor none of them have died and all are receiving medical attention now the jails chief was fired seven years ago of a prisoner preachings but was put back in his post last month the inmates then went on anger strike before attempting the mass suicide on wednesday the prisoners

undertook a saying drastic action back in two thousand and five venter draw attention to the brutal conditions. quick look at some of the stories making headlines around the world taliban government killed ten policemen in an attack on a remote checkpoint in western afghanistan the militants first strangled the guard before opening fire on security offices elsewhere a suicide bomber struck a bazaar in the northeast and killed to work on the sixteen others as appears to be increasing following the harsh afghan winter during which there is usually a reduction in fighting. mollies rebels have declared a cease fire after seizing the three main towns in the north they want their own state and effectively split the country into the rebels took advantage of the chaos in the wake of the military coup sparked by the president's handling of the insurgency but instead african leaders will meet to discuss possible intervention to force money is just to give up power. because of the plans to win back the

wavering french voters with some financial frightening his presidential reelection under stress that yours alone unless he's voted back in the country will end up what greece or spain the club has in pledges cut so the seventy billion dollars in tax hikes to put him back in the was which is not ready for forty years he's taken a narrow lead over his main rival in the polls with a window far from certain. the self-proclaimed mastermind of the nine eleven terror attacks has been said to trial along with four suspected accomplices of the bay prisoners face the death penalty if convicted they're accused of planning and executing the attacks which killed nearly three thousand people in two thousand. president obama wanted them tried in a civilian court but that decision was reversed last year after widespread opposition. head of the latest cars report we take a look at those financial figures next in our business bulletin in just a few moments here on r.t. .

well and welcome to first big night business update on our stay with me to be sure medibank oh let's take a look straightaway what's going on in the united states the south rim is the only markets which are actually trading right now dow jones is still down nasdaq. looking much better than that some positive territory that's all new news reported by the york times that facebook will be listing on the nasdaq it will have an instrument be actually nasdaq's own shares are going up more than one percent the sound on the news meanwhile we've had several data released today on jobless claims they were declining and retail sales coming out better than expected this has been creating somewhat of an agitation on the market but not enough to keep the dow in the post. over in europe pretty much on the same news we're seeing confusion and investors' minds ahead of a long weekend of cool school easter no trading to go. in. london on friday

and on monday because of the easter holidays the dax was pressured down by spain's bond yields and it leads one yields coming up also cause growth in france this is all of course keeping pressure on the on the markets. over in russia in the final minutes of trading just the last twenty minutes the hype came out of that retail sales report coming out of the united states and therefore the markets managed some gains as you can see there three quarters of a percent on the my stocks a lot of corporate results coming out and video boosting profits fifty percent in the previous year on russia forty two percent and therefore they are gainers new coil has also been performing better than the market and higher commodity prices. in currencies europe the euro is declining birth as the dollar continuing to do so it has been over the past two days declining versus the greenback this is of course

because a lot of investors are cashing out and therefore demand for the dollar is pretty high the ruble managed some gains again in the final minutes of trading against the past you know for currencies and finally a second look at what's going on the commodities market and it's recovering light sweet now above one hundred three dollars per barrel all again on that retail sales report which means that even despite high gasoline prices people continue to shop basically the economy continues to recover. ukraine has reportedly come up with a new idea to diversify its gas supplies away from russia which it claims is too expensive commissar newspaper says it's ready to burst around eight hundred million dollars in the construction of the trance caspian pipeline now this eight billion dollar project is backed by to plan a start and. this pipeline would connect which is intended to transport the central asian gas to europe bypassing russia. all right that's it from the business team

for today but eight twenty am moscow time you can join my colleague katie philby she will be here to bring an update all there's always a lot to argue forward slash this is goodbye from.