old. r.s.s. feeds now in the palm of your. dot com. the syrian foreign ministry says armed gangs were responsible for the massacre in the town of food in a bid to start a civil war as washington wants it's ready to sideline the un and go into syria. the power to choose on and vote on whether to hand over the country's money matters to brussels which could see its sovereignty surrendered to. its apart from the high profile who done it the father of poisoned executed the agent alexander litvinenko believes russian tycoon bodies but is also was behind his murder in london. on screen this is r.t.

live from central moscow with twenty four hours a day the syrian government says the massacre of more than one hundred people in the syrian town of houla was the work of terrorists gangs this is the u.s. secretary of state admits military planning for action inside syria is already going ahead moscow has vowed to block any moves for outside interference at the u.n. . reports from new york. mrs clinton during her visit to denmark she was speaking about the situation in syria saying there is increasing need for more international action in the country clinton also said that russia's policy on syria a policy where russia does not support military intervention or sanctions on syria ms clinton said that is going to contribute to a civil war in syria the us secretary of state said the absence of u. way action in syria mainly due to russia's opposition makes it harder to

respond to the crisis in the way the international community did in libya now these comments are clearly coming in the in light of last week's massacre in u.s. officials are making their words much stronger just on wednesday the u.s. ambassador to the u.n. susan rice said that if the six point peace plan fails and if the security council does not agree on international sanctions on syria then countries would have to consider taking independent action without the authority of the security council what that action would be is not clear because the u.s. and european countries have already imposed their own independent sanctions on syria those words led many to speculate that the u.s. and its allies in concert are possibly considering a military option according to the commander of the free syrian army he has called

on joint special envoy kofi annan to publicly say that his six point peace plan that's about seven weeks old cars failed and out would allow rebels to resume their military attacks against president bashar al assad and his supporters nobody from the united nations has come out and blatantly said that peace plan has failed clearly there's been a violation of the cease fire on. both sides the opposition and the government also it as all these discussions are taking place the syrian government has of course publicly said that there they are the results of their investigation into last week's massacre in houla has found that armed rebels are responsible they say for the deaths of more than one hundred people there and according to their investigation they believe it is because armed rebels are trying to start a civil war in the country the u.n. is also continuing their own independent investigation into what happened in houla and that those results will be known in the next couple of days. activists told me

a little earlier from washington the the u.s. was never interested in the diplomatic solution in syria. well it's important to know that it's the u.s. and nato who are creating a civil war in syria in terms of arming commando mercenaries thought flooding the country with weapons doing everything that they can to destabilize syria and the latest massacre in houla is just one more example because it's this exact scenario that the u.s. has used to justify quote humanitarian intervention in the past and after they create total destabilization send in all sorts of mercenaries and armed groups and they claim that they're going in in order to save the situation it's absolute hypocrisy and fraud and they've done it with u.n.

security council support and they've done it without u.n. security council support and we've seen this in the past and it's clear that the u.s. is not interested in a diplomatic solution they are in every way trying to move toward military intervention which means massive destruction of the entire country but they're already responsible for great destruction. talking to me from new york. the people of all of them the voting on the future of their finances and solvency if the majority says yes to the so-called e.u. fiscal pact over the country's budget and the authority to impose penalties will launch in brussels all these if is involved in. it's hope since choice island has two options is it goes out to vote on a fiscal pact with the e.u. to say yes to writing austerity into law and cede precious sovereignty to brussels

say no and incur the wrath of the european central bank and potentially kissed goodbye to e.u. bailouts and it looks like it's going to be close the reason i'm voting yes this time is that we are in the e.u. now we've lost a veto and it would be foolish to do anything else it is a matter of where we were both looking for change france. has said that they don't want to go down group austerity and that's all that i would have done so far and it's not working there's no change in our at the moment so that's why our people want to send a message to your votes taking place against the backdrop of a failing economy unemployment up to fifteen percent welfare payments a cut public sector spending has been slashed everyone's feeling the pinch including publican jimmy killed near he's seen his turnover full by half as locals batten down the hatches we would have had. five full time employees yeah for part

time we're now down to two full time to part time we had a restaurant upstairs which is now closed yeah that's another three full time jobs . possible income is it's a huge factor it's the discretionary spend that people have it's yeah you can see it through out to the restaurant business and people are very very very careful on how they spend their money today the economy is tightly bound to the ailing eurozone through bank loans and bailouts and many economists think a no vote would mean even steeper all stare a-c. and difficulty borrowing from financial markets we would find ourselves at three. being looked at the scans by foreign direct investment financial investment they would say well are these people really in or of the european core that's arguable the sense of the sensibility of what's going on but if there's

a club and they want to be part of this you know you join the army you are the votes we would be rejecting and i think that would be. attractive from a national pride perspective is it a pride we can afford i'm not sure people think it is thanks to their constitution the arash are the only european people who get to vote on the pact at all but two e.u. member governments have already signed it but if they vote no the irish will be joining a growing anti austerity backlash france's new president francois hollande has talked about trying to renegotiate the pact and germany's angela merkel despite having written the treaty can't get her own parliament to ratify it most of ireland's main political party supports it but not richard boyd barrett of the united left alliance because of all of the gambling debts of banks and speculators of important to the books of the state that this would mean permanent austerity

billions worth of courts every year for at least a decade or more in order to meet the treaty targets and we believe will do on told damage to the economy which is already very traumatized for ireland it seems more damaging austerity is up ahead no matter which way it turns here in dublin literally every available post in the city is bristling with referendum posters the no posters call the fiscal pact the bankers tracy the austerity packed meanwhile the yes campaign maintains it's all about stability either way the future looks bleak many seem willing to cede silver and tea in exchange for financial backup but even that's not guaranteed in a bid me good. euro smith r.t. done. does not talk to declan ganley he's founder of the libertarian party advocating a no vote at this referendum good to see you there in london declan polling stations are reporting on the low turnout at the moment about twenty percent this

afternoon i believe how do you expect the vote to go. i obviously we're hoping for a no vote to send a strong signal on the issue of the socialized bank debt. how it will turn out we'll know tomorrow but a low turnout has traditionally favored the no side but the polls don't close to ten pm this evening so anything can happen if on and does say no that means it won't qualify for any future bailouts could the country survive without any further financial help in the future. i would look at it a different way wolf first of all the e.s.m. which is supposedly this mechanism that would bail us out if we needed a second bailout it is not of sufficient scale in its current design to bail out everybody that may need to access it it's sort of like designing the titanic with the hole already in if they're planning for failure. the e.s.m. as constructed does not do anything to address the chronic insolvency at the heart

of much of your banking system and until that insolvency is is purged put through the bankruptcy process the chances of real a real return of vitality in the european economy i think is somewhat slim particularly in peripheral countries ireland for its part has an even bigger proportion of failed private bank debt that was social lives after it failed then the rest of the european union and we did that in two thousand and eight and two thousand and ten in order to start to save the euro to prevent contagion from spreading so what needs to be done now is that europe needs to come up with a solution that either federalizes that debt and spreads it across all of the european union or writes it off in some other form but to leave that stark on the irish taxpayer money that our government never borrowed which amounts to almost which amounted to a doubling of our debt. almost literally overnight in september two thousand and

eight that came out that cannot stand presumably you. going to get a lot of support for your stance say no to this referendum because people not just in ireland but throughout the whole of europe are fed up with the austerity measures but interesting enough and has met all its budget targets imposed by the you even showed a bit of growth under the current system so it's a bitter pill to swallow but if the irish a patient could it not work for them in the future well we're doing it anyway to your point. the idea that we need to surrender sovereignty fiscal sovereignty while the entity that we're surrendering it to is literally above the law i mean the e.s.m. articles thirty two and thirty five literally make it not subject to any juridical process anywhere it cannot be investigated its offices can't be raided its offices cannot be. no inquiry pursued there that's not acceptable we're doing it anyway

we don't need to surrender sovereignty to do what we're doing anyway the one issue that we absolutely need to deal with not just in iowa but right across the european union is the issue of the the bailouts for failed private financial institutions that have been foisted on taxpayers that can no longer be allowed to continue we must allow the fee freedom to fail in europe for these institutions so that the rest of the economy has the freedom to succeed is this though a point that many people understand the point you're making because it's interesting to see that the countries has now given the decision to the people what other member countries have left it to their parliaments to vote did the irish people really appreciate the fact they got the opportunity of engaged board but did understand it and also do they pick up on the points you're making. well they the polls what we came into this debate relatively late so the the earliest speak of that you had on those points about austerity have been made for several months but

the no side was collapsing frankly in the polls we came in underlining this bank debt issue and all of the issues that i've just talked about plus the democratic deficit in europe and the no side has been increasing in the whole sense that now maybe that would have happened anyway but that is a fact when you observe the polls that the issue of the democratic deficit which is become very serious it's a real crisis of democracy now the european level is such that in an op ed in the wall street journal today i call for serious moves to be made to create a united states of europe constructed in a federal way from the bottom up that is to say that it is fully democratically accountable and solvent. good to talk to be very interesting to see how the irish vote on this thank you for joining us live in london thank you bob well that image putin is heading west to talk energy and economics on his first foreign trip since

being elected russia's president he'll visit germany and france but the first stop for him is better or worse relations between moscow and minsk became somewhat strained. his presidency but political analysts dimitri babich believes this will change now. if you look at the economic ties between russia and these countries you will see a very clear picture burden is russia's biggest partner in europe and the european union is in general russia's biggest trading partner and in the former soviet union bella which is the biggest trading fog in the close of trading partners and they're going to discuss economy they're going to discuss their joint venture on production of drugs they're going to discuss privatization of the russian enterprises by russian business and i would say that quarrel. with bill it was there were more still on the line between will question and former president maybe buddha was always very cautious he never got involved in

a very very. angry exchange awards that took place between me and will question and there is a lot less bad blood between them and they were made to be different if you noticed changed his tone towards the question during the last one and the hof years. just remind you got all our top stories covered on screen and online at r.t. dot com and here's what else is on the website at the moment what's the latest of a sanjay is julian assange interview program in which he meets various occupy activists to hear about the past and the future of the movement. and a field of cannabis is discovered in moscow with authorities saying back in seeds must have come in the soil used to grow lawns lawn to r.t. dot com to find out about. the controversial act piracy agreement has been dealt

a blow by the european parliament three key committees have voted against the treaty citing concerns over its legality sparked europe wide protests with activists claiming online freedom of speech is being put at risk let's discuss this with rick wagner is the founder of the street party in stockholm well a final decision on whether to ratify actor will be made in july i suppose you're delighted by this latest development what do you make of what's happened. because as you say only the three first events and long chain that lead up to the final vote on the floor of the of the environment and early july but seeing that the first three events essentially were the three strikes against actor obviously this conflict between the old and the new has started very well for the net out of a side what what why exactly you and other activists so opposed to act can you explain why it's a threat to the freedom of speech online when it's supposed to be protecting copyright holders and content providers. for several reasons to die if you're

sending something over the internet your exercising freedom of speech but at the same time if you're sending anything that means that you can also use this freedom of speech to infringe on the cop romanov so our basic freedom of speech has become fundamentally incompatible with age old monopoly. predominantly up into a couple of decades ago only used by corporate lawyers a few years it's battled its way into the bedrooms of our most ordinary citizens and it's just not doable to criminalize two hundred fifty millions of europeans on what they do pretty much every day that said even those who are in favor of strong monopolies recognize the actor deliberately conflates the issues of fake medicine as counterfeit fatal medicine with teenagers

downloading and sharing music goes to those two issues are not the same problem and they should not be covered by the same laws but nevertheless if i was a filmmaker musician author in effect aren't people now being given the freedom to steal my content in the future don't i deserve some sort of protection. what artists are frankly doing fine if you're looking at hollywood it's doing good year after record year musicians that average income rise one hundred fourteen percent since the advent of napster a decade ago so what. is the decline and possibly death of the city committal men who used to take ninety five percent of the cut those are the ones fighting for control over the net. what we send to each other and that's understandable as there's their sales is going down the drain which is great for artists producers

and filmmakers because that means more the cut is going to them very finally this could likely be scrapped torn up do you think though there is room though to conceive some other sort of treaty just just briefly in the future. that's the thing i mean actor was shutting the door for reform which is also a very good reason to oppose it we do need very we die early need to reform the cockroach monopoly on power monopolies as we transition further into a digital digital economy in europe so i definitely see that we'll see a reform of both copyright and patent monopolies but not necessarily in the way that the middlemen are wanting your thoughts revolving from the swedish pirate party talking to us live from stockholm. scotland yard has received a tip about who might have murdered former russian security agent alexander litvinenko back in two thousand and six and the tapes sent to british investigators live when it was for the plane's x. old russian billionaire buddies but it's off ski and one of his associates sara

first reports on whether this new revelation would affect the long running case. of the twist in the story surrounding the poisoning and murder of former security official alexander litvinenko a living in a case of a vault that has revealed in an interview the names of the people he says of the killers of his son the other people he names of the russian billionaire boris the better results and alex gold these were both former colleagues and friends of alexander litvinenko. because berezovsky and goldfarb. knows all about atomic energy how do you think alexander first became infected with polonium to turn why do you think this case has been dragging on for so long why is it been no court case because they don't have anything and if it were to open it will become apparent who was behind it there is a pays money to some high personas. everyone is covering every one of my boys since

it was just a card in the hands of i want to return to russia to seek justice for my son's death alex goen he's the chairman of. the live itif it was a very close confidant of the bank in the weeks leading up to his death he was the unofficial spokesman he was also the man he wrote the statement at the time of the yankees that accusing the russian government of carrying out that crime now after the death the investigation stake is very heavily on full of bodyguards andrey lugovoy he is now a russian and he recently passed a lie detector test that was carried out by british. did you do anything that led to the death of alexander litvinenko. were you involved in alexander litvinenko. have you ever had any dealings with polonium. litvinenko case father valter had

previously apologised to him. that he was involved in this crime being carried out now in an interview with r t both the libyan young. that he was with alexander at the time that he died and that alexander litvinenko had written down the names of the people responsible for their on a piece of paper he's also told r.t. that he should be used as a witness now and indeed it seems on the back of this interview and these revelations could now be used as evidence that perhaps we can see this now being a further push for the british authorities to continue their lines of investigation and other attempts to finding the truth of what really happened in the. first reporting from london we got the business news but first let's check out some of the other main stories making headlines around the world in our world update a spate of attacks in iraq has killed at least eighteen people and left over fifty injured five bombings targeted the restaurants and police officials in baghdad

where seventeen were killed and one of advisor to the iraqi prime minister was also hit and they got attack in the city of mosul northwest of baghdad which left police iraq has seen a number of thirdly architects in recent months after the u.s. combat troops left in december. is rather tired of the bodies of ninety one palestinians to authorities in the west bank the remains belong to those who died in past decades while carrying out attacks on israel which says the move is aimed at encouraging peace talks which collapsed in two thousand and ten after it refused to stop building settlements on land seized from palestinians if the talks fail again the country's defense minister says israel could define the borders of a future palestinian state unilaterally. the first private spacecraft to reach the international space station has successfully returned to earth the dragon has landed in the pacific ocean off the mexican coast from where it's now being recovered a cargo capsule built by california based company space x. spent five days in orbit and on

a test mission america has been without its own means of transportation to the which since its shuttles retired last year. now demetrius promise is next with business news and the u.s. market is in for its first monthly loss in the last eight months dimitri that's right well at least that's true for the dow jones industrial average index which right now is slightly positive after a batch of. disappointing data coming out of the united states not to be g.d.p. has been revised from first quarter one point nine percent annualized which is lower than expected but there's a report that the international monetary fund is mulling a plan to provide a loan to spain should it fail to resolve the problems on its own so therefore we're seeing a bit of optimism compared to last in europe this is the closing picture no time to react to the i.m.f. plans of these are just point two percent of the actual point three percent on the back of this negative data coming out so especially on the jobs market in the

united states pretty disappointing the slowdown and also a plan to create a banking union in europe now on the oil market we've seen a slight recovery there were down more than one half dollars per barrel last that was a bit better now with this report and therefore tomorrow on friday russia might see more support to its currency if we actually season movement in the positive territory if we see this rebound continuing on thursday we saw a massive nosedive second day in a row of losses of more than two percent compared to both currencies walls of dignity of the head of new konami school says this is not unexpected. i think it is normal the trouble is we can right now it's an emerging markets currency it's also an oil currency so whenever europe is going through the volatility it has now it's normal that investors sorry but trade in money from emerging markets turn in their risk of. that that we can see just like robert i think this is

a very good news that the central bank doesn't intervene in interfere and let the will slide i think this sends a very strong signal that the central bank is committed to the floor change rate. policy which it has announced that more last year and that is going to work this year if oil prices goes back ruble will strengthen therefore the price slides down probably can go there but the very fact that the central bank is committed to the floor going to change rate policy and the inflation target and i think it's good news for russian inflation macroeconomic stability try this is the closing picture for the russian markets they were opt but they even though my stocks managed to slide down in the end among the main movers they have cases them reported first quarter profits almost quadruple the year on year. and also was up two point six percent bucking the trend for the second day that's on the back of a buy back from minorities and gas from a standpoint some for some the back of

a lot of well prices. that's all i have for you this hour we're back in two hours time with another update thanks a lot to me train now of course money matters continue here in lauren misters capital account her program from washington that's coming your way after the headlines.

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