on the night page political turmoil in greece threatens to crush the hopes of a united euro zone despite the heavyweights vowing to battle the crisis together. saving some cash at the cost of public safety a massive number of u.k. police officers said to be given the boot critics say it will leave the streets unprotected. and as the war crimes tribunal in the hague takes up the case of former bosnian serb general ratko blot age we ask his son why the defense doesn't think the trials impartial. two pm in moscow i match reza good to have you with us here on r t our top story

it's a tough road ahead for france and germany as newly elected president francois hollande and chancellor angela merkel pledged to work together to fight the crisis but they don't exactly see eye to eye on how to do it with opposing views on belt tightening and how to punish overspenders parties peter all over has more from berlin. well there was no real political bombshells dropped at the meeting between francois hollande and angle of merkel but there was also no attempt to cover up that they too don't see eye to eye on every issue. emphasized his belief that the impetus for growth is needed in the. remains committed that austerity is the only way if the eurozone is to drag its way out of the current mire it finds itself in now on the subject of the fiscal treaty francois hollande was relatively noncommittal however he did say that he continued to say to the french people that he wanted to see the treaty renegotiated now that something of

course that angle of merkel in germany have said isn't on the table but we'll be looking to see if they can come to some form of compromise over that issue that treaty of course binding the states that signed up to it to austerity measures the subject of greece of course on the table for discussion is first meeting between the two leaders both of them saying that they want greece to stay within the euro land said that he would respect what ever happens in the greek elections which will be taking place in june however all and also saying that he appreciated the suffering of the greek people during this tough time angle a merkel said that the euro was a political project not just a monetary one and said that the eurozone and the euro had benefited the people of europe and would continue to benefit them so no real attempt to hide the

differences between the two leaders but no sign that they can come to some form of compromise over their well polarizing political views the new french president appointed his new prime minister before boarding a plane to come here to lynn if you thought boarding that plane was going to be the easiest part of his day and he was in for a bit of a shock the plane was then hit by like. apparently on its way here and was forced to return to paris way up the creek got off got on a new plane and made his way here arriving safely if not a little late for this important meeting between the two leaders of the two biggest economies in europe the two leaders that are going to be crucial if the eurozone problems are going to be sorted out when greece has been left in a political limbo with which can see the exit out of a currency union athens now readying for a new election after all attempts to form a government failed with parties rejecting a coalition that in forces more cuts a caretaker government will be appointed in the meantime economic analyst and excrete thinks the potential for agree for

a greek exit would shake up the eurozone. i think that they are already contingency plans beginning in the eurozone for a great exit of course this isn't it is easy as some might have you know because they would be tremendous contagion through the other periphery countries so it would really shake up the eurozone completely and also z. cost of greece exiting the euro and being bankrupt is more than about three hundred billion because it's not just what the government owes it's also what the greek banks had what the greek central bank goes the e.c.b. you have to understand that in europe at the moment there is a bit of a dichotomy they don't want to give in to greece completely because then they will have everybody else lining up as well but on the other hand they don't want to send the message that we will have members of the eurozone loose and that the eurozone could this of a trinkaus overnight if you ask most greeks about the play whack yes they're very

happy to take it if you ask them whether they would rather be a leader with an eighty percent will say yes if you ask them about the austerity of course they say no i think that they maybe some ways that the memorandum can be renegotiated to take away the worst of the austerity but keep some of the supply side reforms and for greece to be able to stay within the european union in that way but of course political leaders have to come clean with the population. penny pinching efforts in the u.k. are putting the public at risk as the claim of critics who say drastic cuts to police will leave people want to rebel or bennett has the details of the protest policing itself is a rare sight especially one this big that's because these protesters are the police thirty five thousand officers from across england and wales demonstrating against government cuts they call criminal never before so many bodies on one beat the problem is never again these black cabs represent the number of police officers who

lose their jobs. the cards sixteen fouls and over the next four years which cuts they say that could seriously threaten the public safety it will have an impact on the public safety not just that section of the police it is people will see if you will this is on the street and at the end of the day people see police police officers on the street they feel safe bitingly presence and that's just not going to happen in egypt it was known as the baxter release also in the will and with these it's simply it will continue like that the police will be hit hard by government desperate to get more for less over five thousand officers have already been booted off frontline policing in the past year alone police pay and pensions will also be slashed in a sweeping twenty percent cuts the thin blue lines about to get much thinner we will be able to provide a service that's issued it is it. feels. like

almost it was created to be able to. direct it's always a little bit shaky most of it's not just police probation officers are up for the chopper to the government wants to replace them with machines expected to look like this removing yet another barrier protecting the public they're supposed to stop criminals re offending with nothing but a series of yes no questions they'll be trialed first in parts of london but without a lie detector these machines aren't exactly the spanish inquisition nonsense to suggest that a machine could do the job of a big there's a real likelihood in danger that public protection in britain the compromised if these machines are rolled up nationally. even deterioration behavior will be missed but most people go on commit serious crimes against the public the government insists the machines to cut costs stating this is

a mystery prison. the london probation trust is investigating a range of a normative approaches to law professionals to cut bureaucracy and spend their time more effectively with the offenders the supervise public protection will always be our priority not according to those charged with that role it's been four years since police officers lost. three london the next time sure to be sooner than that if the government continues its on the bennett london. well stay with us here on r t still to come in a few minutes lessons of hate history classes on different sides of the israeli palestinian divide serve as a source of conflict from a tender age although one school begs to differ. and syria is a target of interest free dealt a major blow by the revolt with businesses on the verge of bankruptcy although it had a full of foreigners have managed to avoid the conflict we'll tell you why. but for

a former bosnian serb general ratko melodic is standing trial at the international hague tribunal he's charged with genocide during the yugoslav war in the one nine hundred ninety s. among his alleged crimes the massacre in the town of cyber needs where eight thousand muslims were slaughtered and the deaths of more than ten thousand civilians during the siege of sarajevo sixty nine year old was a arrested by serb forces near belgrade last year his defense attorney had asked for the trial to be's be postponed saying the prosecution had failed to provide evidence on time they also accuse the judge of bias is still viewed as a national hero by some serbs in an interview with r.t. his son told us why. i am proud of his role in the most now war not because i think that he's guilty of anything but because. that he was doing his job to support and primarily objective or.

was to protect our people from. being exposed to genocide and again. i think that the only friend supporting my father and this is me didn't the soviet people this saying there isn't for me is a. terrible outcome for us because only. defending ourselves from being exposed to genocide and my father not succeeded in this task and then proud of. the role of his in the war. that full interview with dark on lot of gin about twenty minutes here on r.t. . between israeli forces and palestinian demonstrators erupted during the annual not by day march in the west bank it's a rally to mark the nine hundred forty eight displacement of hundreds of thousands of palestinians but while adults commemorate history children on different sides of the border are taught different versions of it as are his policy or reports. the

answer to the israeli palestinian puzzle might lie in these pages where arab and jewish children who never meet in person get to know each other only through the written word two usually they're not named they're called arabs or israel's arabs which is a racist label and then they're represented as their primitive farmers and no modes also always with a coffee or with a camel and with some kind of dress that nobody really wears in racist caricatures . and of course terrorist but it's not much better in the palestinian textbooks the stereotypes here also pretty alarming the israeli jews. are invaders from europe they have nothing to do with this land and they are basically criminals and therefore they are educated for a long term war against them much of the problem stems from the fact that in israel

jews and arabs go to different schools they study a different curriculum and sit different exams what small because jewish schools are generally better funded the standard of education is higher but here is one school trying to get it right it is part of a says for peace of village with an equal number of both jewish and arab learn is a sign from being an example of how both sides can learn together the most important lesson here is understanding each other it's the first school of its kind in the country and receives no funding from the government in every classroom is an israeli and palestinian teacher and every lesson is taught in both hebrew and arabic some terms of insurance maybe according to what is going. there is. some of. the war and. some there are coming from home was kind of.

and they're talking about in a particularly difficult place and these teachers are preparing for israel's independence day because while for israelis it's a national holiday for palestinians it's a catastrophe when the two teachers are standing for the children the children are tense in there sometimes. just like i'm here and i'm not here we assure them it's ok to speak about it it's not something bad this is history in we're supposed to speak about what happened and look for the future together but the challenges underscored use this israeli takes books which it has translated into arabic there are sections that talk about a so-called palestinian demographic nightmare and there are maps that ignore each other's existence what these books do especially history books they teach the children not to historical discourse this is not the discourse of historians they

teach them to hit this course of politicians and generals. and so until a different story is written and taught the lessons most israelis and palestinian children taken to the future for disney short of a real education for peace policy r t the true. concern is rising in beijing over washington's arriving up of its military presence near china's borders most of the most one of the most modern u.s. navy attack submarines has dr thorpe in port close to the disputed territory where philippine and chinese ships are locked in a standoff peter simons from the world socialist web site things the u.s. artillery in the region could be a threat china. you know your suit is basically asserting it's it's. military position in the south china sea i think this is only one of a number of different visits and what have you that have taken place not just to the philippines but also to vietnam to japan right up and down the coast

on a chart and the message is obviously delivered to china to the u.s. nine times its military presence there and quite overt on. the submarine operators the lightest the desire on the most sophisticated the nine times it's the this is my voyage and they're sent to these very sensitive areas it also has an economic component to it it's seeking to put pressure on china to mike major concessions in that sphere as well. harty dot com has many more stories for you to explore its claim police in the us aren't sparing some illegal resources on occupy protesters activists say they've been given drugs by police in the state of minnesota in exchange for information as authorities order it investigate. at a norwegian man second self on fire in oslo outside the court where

a mass killer anders breivik is currently on trial the badly injured man was taken to the hospital by no more at r.t. dot com. he's. the official. pulled touch from the. video. feed now in the palm of your.

police have cleared an opposition protests kept in the center of moscow that have been in existence for more than a week on tuesday a moscow court ordered activists to clear the site but many refused police orders to disperse some twenty people were detained most of them have now been released a group of about thirty people have moved to a different part of the russian capital looking for a new place to demonstrate activists arranged sit in protests after president vladimir putin's inauguration anger is the burned out. pretty now to some other stories making headlines across the globe a bomb targeting a hard line former colombian interior minister has killed two of his bodyguards in the capital bogota thirty nine others were injured in the attack that struck a busy district filled with people the former and former minister suffered minor wounds in the blast no one's immediately claimed responsibility but police are

pointing their finger at the country's main leftist rebel group before. and indeed in the search team has found one of the two flight data recorders from the doomed russian sukhoi superjet one hundred but data box was badly damaged and could hinder the probe the plane flew into a cliff dormant volcano last week during a demonstration flight killing all forty five aboard the plane's manufacturers are blaming the accident on the difficult mountainous terrain that has also been greatly hampering the search and recovery efforts. dominic strauss kahn has made a million dollar counter claim against the new york hotel maid who accused him of sexual assault former i.m.f. chief said the woman lied about the alleged attack a year ago that seriously damaged his reputation the criminal case against him was dropped after prosecutors said the housekeeper had lost credibility after the frenchman's arrest he resigned from the i.m.f. and was unable to take part in a presidential race as a leading socialist candidate. for years syria was able to capitalize on its rich

history and ancient cities to build a thriving tourist industry but after months of conflict the vital source of income has all but dried up and as our son a boy who reports many in the country say they've been a robbed by the revolution. he wanted to see the world but became a touring sensation himself martin at twenty eight year old boss driver from germany was on a year long by journey when he entered syria about two weeks ago and aware of the clashes he wrote all the way to homs and even managed to take pictures of it when two homes entered hama but the word of many here take four is that they even let me into the city center. it was quite a strange feeling you know nobody was in the world you could see what happened before but i never feared danger here dangerous for myself martin barely knows a few phrases in arabic but he's open smile and boyish curiosity out loud him to connect with the locals even those whose job presupposes some suspicion of foreign

there's. a point to it because i'm going to the white house across an office of like. such a bitch when they think. it was it was never such makes sation a lot of the obvious voters while he's home country of germany has kept a fairly low profile in the diplomatic spat over the fate of syria he says he often hears locals complain about the western meddling in serious internal affairs i think the problem is that new is trying to tell you sometimes i'm singing and you believe it but the news hour bored to tell you different stories in the news instead of the country so i always thought it's just a problem that inside of syria right now many syrian people same years are coming out from the outside of the country this it sure is like martin would be very welcome guests in syria these days but there are very few and far between the

countries tourism industry was devastated by the revolution but the number of visitors slumping by more than ninety percent in the lap of the country's largest city and home to countless you know ask a heritage sites. the ten percent occupancy rate is now considered a stroke of luck you know this is one of the sixty five rooms you are talking about out of the sixty five how many in the uk but not more than five rooms and it's not just about loss profit in aleppo which some claim is the oldest continuously inhabited settlement on earth tourism has helped feed vital landmarks such as roomy martinis boutique hotel and you gave in new ways of live to the four centuries old building especially if. you spend a lot every year to keep such buildings alive from my experience i can tell you that about seven to ten percent of my whole income i spend it on maintenance

ramy martini's not shy in criticizing the assad government for the slow pace of economic reforms yet he believes that's no reason to bring the whole country to the point of self-destruction nobody could imagine that could. get to such situation like now at the beginning everybody was looking for freedom but afterwards when it comes to clashes and fire and killing and killing for nothing just only that you're with the government or against the government and kidnapping people really we are sorry for syria to come like this what's made things even worse is that two thousand and ten the last year before the syrian uprising was the most successful on record for serious tourism industry revenues jump by sixty percent prompting many to take out investment loans they're no longer able to repay

no wonder many now feel bankrupted by their revolution in times of crisis tourism is always the first to fall and the last to recover and sarah learned the hard way what's ironic. because that in order to rise from the ashes this country desperately needs visitors from the same nations that contributed to the current crisis actually work our sea syria. meter is up now with our leaders business news and our markets continuing yesterday's slump yes they are mad they have been doing so the past couple of weeks actually and what we're seeing right now is this uncertainty over the political situation in greece and the fact that it might actually leave the euro zone is causing investors to sell and sell even more footsie and that acts are now below one percent the falling more than one percent i mean in russia it's even worse than that with the odds yes falling as much as two point seven per cent at this hour now we are seeing close to two year lows for the

russian stock market the my six is down one point eight percent because of the weakening rubles take a look at that the ruble has been shedding a lot of value one point was losing one half percent versus the dollar and that was a little more than one percent thirty seven copecks and the it's falling against the euro too despite the fact that the euro as you can see that is losing a lot of value versus the dollar and that's because a lot of money is coming out of the market into cash and notably into the greenback and in the commodities markets we are also seeing very much the same trend with the brant and light sweet blend befalling one and a half dollars per barrel at this hour now let's talk more about well let's get some insight from dave. global director of oil at platts how do you take so in your opinion why is of falling so much. yeah hi dmitri you know pretty much as you

were recapping there with the viewers the news in europe right now it's got the all markets very much fixated on what could happen to world demand in western europe and you know we have to remember that in the world market for much of the year we saw a lot of strong. news coming out of the supply side there was concern about iran for example and what might happen with the supply side of the market but there's been nothing new on that for a number of weeks now the market's gone very quiet about supply side concern so boil the traders are now turning their attention to the demand side and there's real concern that if greece withdraws from the euro and inflates its way out of problems potentially had their western europe might move into recession and that's a real problem for the oil markets western europe alone accounts for twenty percent of world oil demand additionally it's china's single largest trading partner so the oil market is double they concerned about that right now so you think should do a grease exit the euro zone of this fact has not yet been priced in on the market fully. correct brant at around one hundred dollars

a barrel or slightly higher is essentially predicated on the idea that european old demand will be largely flat this year now if you put your finger on the pulse of the market there is the very faintest trace of a pulse in the market german g.d.p. grew by half a percent in the first quarter we had that data yesterday as oil traders some reason to believe that demand might be flat this year but if greece withdraws in europe goes into a major recession all bets are off at that point and many people we've talked to expect prices to fall quite a bit further after that if that happens how much of a speculative asset is oil at the moment. well it's been part of most speculators portfolios for the better part of ten years now and i think there may have been some tinkering as to the amount of somebody's portfolio oil futures might make up but by and large it remains as popular an instrument as ever there aren't many instruments out there if you're an investor or a financial player that are showing any kind of return right now so oil remains one of the favorites of the vestment community i'm sure. the traditional question is if

you take out your crystal ball what's the oil price by the end of the summer the least. well of course it's hard to say exactly where the oil price will be but i would put it to you this way are sitting here in may the futures markets are trading in june july and august those are always the softness months in the year for oil demand in oil fundamentals supply looks strong demand looks weak but by the time we get to the summer time most people who are giving forecasts for q three and q four are expecting the market to remain somewhat tight absent a european recession so if europe can correct itself and stay on the path of stability it looks like the market will be quite high actually in q three and q four so i'd expect to see the biggest pressure right about now and for the next month or so ok great thank you so much for your comments that was. from platts. and that's all we have time for pretty much in this edition of the business news on c but i'll be back in fifty five minutes time with an update matt.

it's not for nothing we have to begin to identify those goals you have been. pushed. to stand for.

just the. plan is to come to peace. as i keep my people in similar bed but it is a bunch of losers but i have a very good job people have jobs here that's all nonsense they would have jobs they're losers. cause. my. last. line. would be so much.