in the central syria and it's lot absolutely not safe in that area and this is why they're not allowing anybody in a van and observers were going here in two different takes from the opposition and from the syrian government the opposition is claim is that the syrian army shelled to peaceful farming village in central syria and after that alleged through assad minute turns came in they type people they shot they stopped and burned in an orgy of violence the syrian government has been reporting that they've got a call from the local residents in one of these villages asking for help after militants took over the village and immediately after these call they operate in and after they entered the village they discovered nine bodies of civilians and it's actually also contradicts what the rebels are reported about death told the most extreme doffed death toll given so far stones that's almost one hundred dad and this is the figure that's been picked up by almost old international media who

can hear it from new york from the u.n. security council that both. ban ki-moon and special envoy to syria call for and have been calling on international community to put more pressure on damascus and i had a sad that his peace plan is not being implemented although these time stressing that is still being implemented by both sides and both sides both rounding up a station and syrian government are responsible for what's going on at the same time emphasizing this is. the responsibility of the syrian authorities to and the violence in their country both u.s. and international officials have recognized that the reason a third force operating here in syria and it's not just clear who exactly is behind what it contains and then jihad is the truth of the matter is as you know. the position groups. not only failed to comply to.

be clear it was their intention not to do so which to us is a very dangerous development of it go into productive development call finance hazards and the fate of the syrian president bashar assad has to be decided by syrian people and this is something that russia and china are also supporting being very much against any kind of intervention other nations that are backing rebels they are already interfering into syria is internal affairs and not only syria is spain and goals by the conflict but also the international community is is shaken by conflict and is very much divided and there is no compromise saying that our correspondents on the international they're now syrian opposition claim us as troops have shelled the city of homs and are preparing to storm an area controlled by the rebels let's discuss developments with james corbat editor of the pan

a news website the credit report james thanks very much for being here with us on the program so kofi annan has admitted that his six point peace plan isn't working now in this case can anything at all be done to end the crisis. it's a very good question it's a very important question but i'm afraid it's one that doesn't have a very good prognosis when we start to look at the situation and i think it's important for us to remember that this is not just to be the end point of one year of political instability in syria but really a number of years of all sorts of intervention that's been taking place in syria to try to destabilize the assad government for a number of years now from a number of different outside forces and so what we are left at at this point is a point which pretty much everyone involved in now admits is it is a state that's tantamount to civil war or on the brink of becoming a type of civil war and it's doesn't show any signs of stopping or abating and it's very difficult to see a way out of this situation at the moment. well you know the the estimates of the

death toll in the hama massacre very dramatically with the opposition claiming almost one hundred were killed and the government puts the number of the dead at nine so it's a huge difference there as you can see why such conflicting accounts. well obviously we have one side that is not telling the truth or is not properly informed and obviously it's difficult for us on the outside to to come to a deciding factor on that in any reasonable situation we would have some sort of way of determining the veracity of that statement but obviously things in syria have deteriorated to such an extent that that's almost impossible to imagine right now so unfortunately we're left in a situation where it's a he says she says type type of scenario and. unfortunately there really doesn't seem to be a deciding factor in a lot of this because. every every negotiator at the table so to speak in this in the international community at any rate seems to have something invested in the

outcome of this so it's very difficult to see who would be an objective third party neutral observer of these types of events well let's not talk about do you want to remain in syria how effective do you think it is and most importantly will they be able to find out who's to blame for the massacre. it seems very unlikely at this point given again the instability that's happening there and and i think this points to the futility of the mission overall what that will what exactly was supposed to be accomplished by a cease fire in which neither side seemed interested in you know actually ceasing the the hostilities which is now pointed out by pretty much everyone even china and russia is calling for both sides to to really put down arms but it doesn't seem likely at this point it doesn't seem that the u.n. observer mission is going to have any effect on the situation all it seems to have done is to put this entire dispute into a political process that that sends it down a few months further down the road but i think we're ultimately at the same point

basically that we were before the the observer mission and again that was pretty much predictable and not too much surprising for those who would watch this come together and i think really we just to arrive at the exact same step that we were at before the mission began well you know most of the international community blames asa for the violence but what he gained from violating the peace plan at such a critical time. well that's that's in a very important question a lot of this seems to to rely on a logic that would seem to imply that the assad government is simply much a bunch of genocidal suicidal maniacs basically with no logic whatsoever and it's very difficult to believe that so so i don't i don't see that but the propaganda that's coming out about what the assad government would have to gain from committing these types of atrocities in plain view of the entire world and then. attacking u.n. observer missions and things like this it it's very difficult to understand how

anyone is expected to believe that this would be some sort of political strategy on the outside government's part so it it seems cartoonish in the rhetoric there clearly has to be more going on and we've seen that from all sorts of different releases of information and and some of the interventions that sit that's been going on secretly and quite openly also for the past year in terms of outside the arming of the opposition groups or james coburn as you've had a news website of that report thanks very much indeed for sharing your views with us here on our to. the wait is almost over for millions of football fans across europe as the euro two thousand and twelve time end kicks off this friday in warsaw however the championship hosted jointly by poland and ukraine has attracted criticism for both human rights violations as well as claims of racism most recently from the dutch national team largest gay partridge explains. the issue as you say is not really about sports so

much in football it's about politics because the u.k. governments have joined the french government in saying that they will boycott the tournament during the group stages this is due to the alleged mistreatment of the imprisoned former prime minister yulia timoshenko. both the u.k. government as i say on the back of the french government and other high profile e.u. withdrawals and threatened withdrawals over the alleged mistreatment the situation here is not really just about political controversies that seem to be dogging this tournament but also about social issues and as you say racism has become a particular issue a dutch team based not in ukraine they're braced in krakow in poland just before they come into play the game and they have they've had their training session and apparently they were subjected to racist abuse while they were on the pitch which is a sad incident from the reports after they went to see auschwitz but racism is particularly a topic in england because last week there was broadcast a programme that on the b.b.c. a panorama programme called stadiums of hate which highlighted club level

particular problems with racism and anti-semitism in poland and ukraine and these pictures were showing to the england former captain and defender salt campbell and he looked at these pictures and said that he and the england fan of black all mixed race he would he would not go to these two eastern europe he said he wouldn't risk it for fear of coming back in the coffin now the referee has the right to stop the game should any player suffer any kind of abuse and not just have been stopped for the has been a president during the qualifying games where italy played serbia in general in october two thousand and ten and after severe found trouble not to study the race nature of it serious trouble the referee decided to stop the match and this to me were awarded a three nil victory ukraine and poland have had five years to prepare for the have been problems these have been reported there's been delays over stadiums and infrastructure there are also problems reported about hotel use in ukraine that prices apparently attend. golding crease well this didn't impress the say you wait

for president michel platini he called some of these hoteliers raucous he didn't mince his words but the watchword here is ukrainian hospitality they will this tournament to remain to be remembered as one that was his first of all everybody is welcome a whole nations all creates and to enjoy the football and the football or be the priority not the political issues not the social issues the focal departures of mourning there our sports you will have the very latest developments for you from ukraine and poland in just over an hour here on r.t. . well still i have for you this hour egyptians are struggling to make ends meet. never forget the speak truth to feed. the world the people accuse their government of ignoring them in the pursuit of power i'll report on that shortly. rob was planning to build an alternative to the panama canal linking the atlantic and the pacific ocean to find

out what countries are hoping to dive into the thirty billion dollar deal. what is coming to you later before that spain is on the edge of a financial abyss as sources claim it could ask for bail out as early as this weekend madrid script credit score has been slashed while its boring cause soared close to the level that forced greece portugal and ireland to seek rescue but as euro zone powerhouses try to keep the single currency afloat one irish town is banking on the past to turn a profit it is laura smith reports. it's a blast from the past as this customer uses the irish punt to pay for some everyday purchases in the town of clueless arlen's joined the euro from the get go in two thousand and two but crisis hit business owners here have revived their old currency to try and desperately clore some cash back into the community if you bring in pointed to was twenty point whatever you spend or fifty point whatever you

spend we will give you a change of tone as time voters which you can spend cross the road unsupervised you are in the crib or go for a drink up the tone it's it's a great scheme for the child it means all the money remains within the tug as for the euro here it's been reduced to a novelty item printed on tissues and toilet paper and customers come from miles around to spend their puts often stopping by for a haircut while they're here oh yeah a lot of people come from across the border from belfast especially our own from people from the phantoms from the functions on us. geisha mountain in. him in that on out there's an estimated two hundred eighty five million puns tucked away in draws and under mattresses forgotten about ok to souvenirs when i joined the euro a decade ago they're no longer legal tender but would have a value of around two hundred forty million euros just

a fraction of which would make a massive difference in crisis hit close the permit scheme has undoubtedly boosted the local economy but the ravages of the economic crash are still all too evident the main street is lined with boarded up shops with around fifty percent of premises empty it's a scene that's repeated in small towns and biggest cities throughout our land austerity here means business people are being hit with a variety of taxes and levies making it harder and harder to stay afloat let a. turn a profit it's not just told us towns the whole country has suffered with starting measures with the. new water charges which are common in shortly you household charge which came in this year and will increase every year. there was a two percent hike up to twenty three percent in the point of sale tax which we have to do something something to improve the situation shopkeepers say going back

to the point isn't a political statement it's a survival tactic and as the face of the euro hangs in the balance clearness may not be alone in looking back for its future euro smith r.t. closest ireland. well the international monetary fund says fast banks need at least forty billion euros to survive economist and politician market believes the euro zone is caught in a downward spiral. but i think it's clear the reason they're asking for a new resources for europe they would have a know if it was for the other countries it's only europe or the big money i mean the debts of spain and italy are enormous and that's what they're worried if there aren't any big risks to the global economy other than what the europeans are doing to themselves and that's really what it is it's a self-inflicted recession that they're in right know if the recession continues the deeper and more importantly if these governments do what they're being

instructed to do by the european authorities that would be the european central bank the european commission and the i.m.f. if they actually tighten their budgets further cut spending further they're going to go deeper into recession and then we don't know what happens the interest rates get to a certain level because. private markets anymore then they have to go to the european authorities for money and then then there's maybe debt restructuring bank losses all the things that happened with greece but on a much bigger scale. i watched for interview with economist and politician mark weisbrot next hour here in r.t. or you can catch it right now on our website dot com and while you're there check out some of the stories we have lined out for you today sell ron paul son says he's now essentially supporting g.o.p. front runner mitt romney as the party's ultimate candidate to face democrat block

obama in the presidential election even though his father has always been his first choice. and president is of a scottish village called and american town of boring trying not to live up to the names or how they can do that but you can find out how. but little forces in egypt have decided on who will override the country's new constitution. that lasted nearly three months a special panel consisting of one hundred members of parliament will be tasked with the job egypt's military council says fan of the constitution one of the two power in the wake of last year's uprising that toppled president hosni mubarak the country has since plunged into the rest with numerous protests and demonstrations against the ruling army and demands for change at the end of next week there will be a presidential election runoff in rich a muslim brotherhood candidate faces mubarak's former prime minister while

politicians are struggling for power pay little attention to the problems and needs of people as policy we are now reports. it took this fall on the forty seven years to accumulate his wealth and just one week to lose a third of it moment. one morning opened this place and found three buffalo lying down they wouldn't eat or drink anything all the houses in this village all the farmers here lost cattle within a month a foot in mouth disease killed thousands of cattle buffalo sheep and other livestock across egypt in march the united nations declared a catastrophe and warned the epidemic could threaten human food supplies far and wide but egypt and politicians were too busy with the revolution to take much notice for the work done by the government did not do anything for us all animals are dying one by one and no one does anything is lot of. egyptians say the situation has been worsened by a climate of corruption or government employees. and their

so corrupt friend gave very poor the three business being needy be free to do anything when it was found out a new strain on the disease had hit egypt it seemed heart rates soaring and prices rocketing people got afraid and stopped buying meat choosing instead to eat chicken and fish this pushed the price of poultry up by more than fifty percent while the cost of meat remained the same hussein says he's lost sixty percent of his business and is struggling to make ends meet the. things keep getting worse no one's buying from me and i'm more people are waiting to hear if they can trust him a lot. but they might be waiting a while if there are very for the roof and this has never affected the speed to this day to see all corrupted state or new the people who show

difference don't know what it is or flattens they protest by this the mean bureaucracy has never changed and doctors have taken to the streets to protest against a government budget proposal that allocates less than five percent of spending to the health sector but their despondent priorities are not private. the previous regimes. said that perhaps they thought security the regime security the paramount most important issue for them so they spent. a lot of money there was a lot of news holes our taxes disappear there were a lot of corruption and with all this what is left for the actual improvement of services. and so behind the country's political jockeying is an unfolding public

health disaster with potentially much larger implications for egypt and what happens on the political front policy r.t. . now look at some other stories from around the world a bomb attack on a bus carrying government staff has killed eighteen and wounded dozens in northwest pakistan the vehicle was near the city of peshawar when the bomb hidden inside it exploded the blast was the latest reminder of active militancy in the region despite a significant drop in violence over the past years no group has yet said it's behind the a town. about thirty prisoners including taliban fighters have fled from a jail in northern afghanistan officials say they have recaptured sixteen of them with the others still at large inmates escaped after a detonating an explosive which destroyed a watchtower guards and opened fire on the jail breakers killing three and injuring dozens. japan's prime minister said two nuclear reactors inactive since the fukushima disaster must be restarted he added that the move will help to protect

jobs and boost the country's economy the pm insisted all safety measures in the event of another earthquake or tsunami have been undertaken all fifty of japan's workable reactors have been offline since the world's second worst nuclear crisis hit the country last year. the u.n. nuclear watchdog held talks with iran over its controversial nuclear program the agency wants to get greater access to the country's military sites that are suspected of carrying out atomic tests iran insists its program is for peaceful purposes the meeting comes before broader talks later this month in moscow. on governments planning to build a thirty a billion dollar trade routes between the atlantic and the pacific oceans to rival the panama canal several countries including russia are vying for the chance to fund the plant has more. the u.s. has had the biggest share of trade between the atlantic and pacific oceans since

the panama canal was completed in one nine hundred fourteen that situation is now under threat with new plans to build another canal in nearby nicaragua because more and more ships are too big for the panama canal to handle project leaders say they've had interest to russia china japan south korea venezuela and brazil towards the thirty billion dollar project the nicaraguan government hopes it would bring much needed investment to the country currently the region's second poorest after haiti the project has faced some controversy one route running along the river border with neighboring costa rica has caused complaints but nicaragua maintains it does have the right to build there the panama canal is currently going through an upgrade but even after that's finished this nicaraguan canal would be able to take bigger ships and with global trade increasingly shifting to the asia pacific region interest in a second route is also growing if all goes according to plan the project could be

completed by two thousand and nineteen. we go straight to the business here's daniel bushnell is there ad the desk and russia's biggest ponzi scheme gets investigated again hell there are twenty years after it first millions of their life savings police have started a case against the so-called m.m.m. twenty eleven scheme scam game of roadies there's this time is different because their website now admits it's a ponzi scheme because only stepped in when i thought human committed suicide at the weekend after losing all his money in the ninety's fifty million dollars a day up to were coming into the game until it collapsed while authorities put up with the scam so long is clear in the world of legal banking the russians are coming to turkey the country's top lender has bought them is buying from france is written for banks aggressively moving into new markets in favorites agreed to buy from austrian and a vault bank and. well the russian markets are on the pressure tracking overseas

losses they sell the l.t.s. is losing one and a half percent at the moment let's check individual share move the acquisition of debt his bank isn't popular with back investors as you can see their gas produced in overtakes and raising earlier gains it rocketed to six percent on thursday after its company approved a buyback program worth six hundred million dollars device has revealed plans to launch coal production in kazakstan exchange rates the euro's losing against the dollar more euro bad news the russian ruble is once again retreating against both major currencies crews heading for its longest weekly losing streak in more than thirteen years that's all speculation the economies of china and the u.s. will slow europe's reacting to federal reserve chairman ben bernanke you said the u.s. economy is at risk from europe's debt crisis fresh reports suggest spain will request a bailout of through all this weekend global markets are expecting the upcoming elections in greece to clear the situation with this possible sell out of the euro zone but no roubini the man who anticipated the worldwide recession of two thousand

and eight is sure the probability of so-called gregg's it remain high despite voting results. you know by now. i would say that is a very probably the exit the euro zone thing about and for me even if they like not into a new government is going to try to to form their own expression of the company so they have a good day and we like that and i would say that it could be good for them as all these bags it does all of them. and means of them there are massive shown that actually called local be a better story a good old story bonds of course would be the banks that match the savings of people in the banks and that's why they need more funding to make sure that isn't all dissolved and the contagion that's the eurozone is mall there so i presume they could see it that way and it's fine so these all of them the probably it's a manageable look on the bags. and you can watch the full interview with the

roubini all monday you want to know that's the business for this all right and all his remarks and before the sunday looking forward to morning is next hour and in just a few minutes here on our t.v. we're bringing a fiery debate show cross talk for that you may have weinstein. well

. it's technology innovation all the developments from. around rush we've got the future covered. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm charged with the big picture.

while back you are without a reminder of the top stories the u.n. are just both the syrian regime and the rebels to lay down arms to prevent a country from sliding into a full scale civil war as calm as you have observers are said to visit the side of the latest massacre near the city of hama. a day for european football as the two thousand and twelve get set to start a fair play has been dealt a blow with boycotts over human rights abuses and claims of racism most recently from the dutch national team. and euro's own on a knife edge as experts predict spain could soon ask for a bailout but as he knew powerhouses try to keep a single currency afloat one irish town is banking on the past to turn a profit. those are the top stories i'll be back at the top of the hour meantime

gas discuss the future of the european monetary union. plouffe. and if you still. owe him a welcome to crossfire computable about crunch time for the euro with the greek economy in tatters and spain on the financial brain the future of the monetary union looks anything but bright world leaders are calling for quick and decisive action to avoid a doomsday scenario while the european central bank has come out and said the fate of the currency is not in its hands.