of buffer zones. the syrian ambassador also denied that moscow supplying the assad regime with attack helicopters allegations earlier also refuted by the russian foreign minister it is lucy caffein of looks than it where the claims came from of the robust response that followed. while the top top u.n. official may have labeled the syrian conflict a full fledged civil war according to the u.s. secretary of state russia could actually be to blame for the escalating crisis secretary of state hillary clinton to raise some eyebrows and stirred some diplomatic controversy on tuesday when she insisted that russian attack helicopters were on their way to syria take a look we have confronted the russians about stopping their continued arms shipments to to syria and we are concerned about the latest information we have that there are attack helicopters on the way from russia to syria now washington

seem to be caught off guard by a secretary of state hillary clinton's remarks in which stumped even the pentagon's own spokesman can you provide any details as to what kind of helicopters where they live or how are they being delivered. i have not seen reporting that indicates. that the russians are providing attack helicopters to the syrians i have just not seen that that while washington was left to sort out as confusion over the comments russia's foreign minister sergey lavrov was very clear in his denial of those allegations and we see it shows we are currently fulfilling a preexisting and painful contract one of these contracts are related to defense only and exclusively we do not export to syria or anywhere else anything that could be used against peaceful demonstrators because you believe that's markedly different to the united states which regularly ships such weapons to the region just recently when such shipments arrived in a certain persian gulf state for some reason the u.s.

considers this normal when you're now russian attack helicopters are in hot demand right now that's because the u.s. pentagon spends millions to buy russian made seventeen's on behalf of the afghan air force. you see catherine off moody's has slashed spain's credit rating to near junk status in the latest blow to a struggling eurozone most after e.u. leaders agreed to provide spanish banks with a bailout earlier this week as the country's unable to rescue the banking sector on its own also cyprus has been affected by the downgrade to let's get some perspective from our teams to me to measure don't care at the business desk for more how the investors reacting to this downgrade get more bad news again today that's right well what they're doing is they're basically dumping state bonds for spain and they've reached an. all time high of seven point one percent that's really the danger is only thing above seven percent indicates that there's a high chance of a default on on sovereign debt moody's has said basically that this bailout which

was promised to spain's banking system will only increase the sovereign debt burden on the country so therefore we have seen this downgrade of phrenologist and it's also put the country on review for further downgrade so when that happens anything could go from bad to worse we'll have more on that in around twenty minutes time or it's a busy business those things for them and more of the issue too as well later on today on r t is max kaiser and stacey herbert a focus on what they say is fraud dressed up as rescue measures. being bailout terms to be agreed within a week urgency reflects a growing consensus that spells claps might start chain reaction that could topple italy and destroy the euro well you know it's pretty much all he can game and some are more well known than others the greeks or the spanish or the irish they are the instinct they're too polite to question the current artists because they're sort of

talking they wear suits they have nice hands you know they come in there and they target good game and they want maybe we're wrong maybe we're the ones that need to really examine what our position and they're very polite and they. con artist walk out the door with their money step get your pockets picked by too big to fail banks don't waste your time will get lively's dental. so recession raging in social problems soaring the two go hand in hand and in ireland growing drug addictions among the many difficulties is artie's laura smith explains next a government struggling to keep the country's economy afloat also struggling to foot the bill for getting people off drugs. it's a tale of two cities a happy go lucky locals and tourists drink and make mary rubbing shoulders with a seedy underbelly telamon blocks where the poor struggle to make ends meet and

drug to make one person in sixty takes heroin tony gagan runs a needle exchange and rehab program where he sees marginalized people who take a cocktail of drugs often to cry and recessions making it worst he's seeing new people a week. know not his real name is recovering from the years of drug addiction here's a story of economic privation and boredom leading to drugs and the breakdown of relationships with family friends and community.

know did everything except heroin finding his brother. as a teenager. he's in a four month rehab program partly funded at least for now by the state. for the people who run programs. to run and despite increasing numbers of addicts desperate to get a drug rehab center of the government. every year state drug program contributions are being slashed by ten percent a year and for them. varies drop in center for the homeless waiting lists a growing from a few days to weeks or months he says addicts need immediate attention something they're less than less likely to get they become tomorrow's the say there's no

point in even trying i'm never going to do it so how they can access to treatment programs to my mind is vital if in this fight against drugs and programs in ireland are hopelessly inadequate and as the recession bites even harder they won't get any better with disastrous consequences for addicts for communities and for society laura smith r.t. . hundreds of police and troops have formed a security ring around egypt's high court ahead of a ruling on the coming presidential runoff and the legitimacy of the islamist dominated parliament the courts to to rule whether presidential hopeful ahmed shafik the last of the ousted leader hosni mubarak can run for office it's after egypt's government restored the army's power to arrest civilians something that's usually only allowed in a state of emergency worst get the latest on these developments the relevance of the hour we'll go to cairo based journalist and blogger while iskander well thanks

for taking the time to be with us let's suppose the high court rules again shafiq running for office what's next for the country if this happens. i beg your pardon the question once again let's suppose the high court rules again shift freak running for office in a couple of hours time when it makes its ruling what's next for the country if that happens though if you can hear me we didn't do it proper sound check with you go live there so clearly you know. if the constitutional courts for if the constitutional court rules for sure feeling for office there what would happen then. yeah the country would be destabilized and i think that would be reflect the plan of the military to actually go ahead and militarize the country and crack crack down on the you know the revolution that once has happened or what

they don't consider is a revolution the uprising and things would be it would reproduce the mubarak regime once again because the military would do everything in its power to get your feet to presidency and the point they would take every measure to every oppressive measure to crackdown on dissent without presidential runoff is of course just days away now the egyptian military's been granted meantime the power to arrest civilians on the streets is the other side we are in for more turmoil what are your thoughts about this. this is an expansion of the military presence presence in egypt and it direct contradiction to the promise of the military to hand over power because at this moment they seem to want to grab on to power by extending the power of the police what has happened is that they've given the police a boost by adding in military officers and personnel that have the same role as the police but this time without any kind of supervision because they only respond to

a military prosecution and military judiciary so it sort of gives it's a workaround to the emergency law that was counseled earlier on and this gives gives the military impunity to act as they wish without any sort of legal responsible questioning from the. civilian parties while i kind of know what your next dance is going to be the next question but the next obvious question is did you really see this coming are you at all surprised by the manner in which it as happened is it was new but the fact that they will go around the emergency law that wasn't new it was only a matter of how they would do it the military has so far shown. no no signs that it is willing to. behave legitimately and or without without exceptional measures

and this is another exceptional measure that they've taken which which reintroduces sort of the state of emergency you will. that this runoff featuring a muslim brotherhood candidate and also a former regime prime minister what's the general feeling among your countrymen and women there are very between a rock and a hard place. it is exactly that there are people that are polarized by the debate who are who fear the muslim brotherhood and are very mistrusting of them and there are people who are supporting shippey because of that fear and there are people who are just afraid of the oppressive work which is coming back again but there is also the great majority of the population that does not want any of the two extremes both extremes represent a fight in the former regime and this is what people have revolted against and this is what exactly what they do not want again so this is

a very difficult one off it's the worst possible situation for egyptians who do not want any any of the extremes thanks for your thoughts on the program cairo based journalist and blogger what is considered sort of at the sound clip at the top there glad you had its image. well ahead of the presidential run off the muslim brotherhood's warning that the military military could effectively take control of the country even after the election but it's islamist domination that some fear most especially the country's women this story now from artie's paul is sleep. she's young and ambitious and planning to become egypt's next president but she needs to wait ten years until she turned forty so she can run not for the sake of you know winnings a seat or so but physical proving that egyptian women can do it but they're not doing it at the moment this woman trying to run for president this time around and couldn't even get the fifty thousand signatures to qualify our evolution is for the equality for the freedom for the dignity and when this value those

values when success we can see a woman president but with radical islam on the rise and the muslim brotherhood candidate making it to the presidential runoff the fact that women played an important role in the demonstrations that brought down mubarak doesn't mean much the number of women in the egyptian parliament has fallen from twelve percent before the revolution to just two percent now and that's despite the fact that some fifty one percent of egypt is female noticeably absent from the presidential election campaign trails was the issue of women rights and women equality leaving many egyptian women to fear that in the post mubarak period their lives will get worse afaf cream has been trying for five years to divorce her husband but divorce is tough to achieve and with an islamic influence it will only get tougher i don't want to go wherever the i don't mind giving up all my financial rights even the money left to me by my father who is me died my husband doesn't give me any money

and he treats me bury badly. after a bit cream is hoping the courts rule in her favor even if their means she'll be on the street with nothing but she wants the judge to decide soon before hardcore islamists get into power and human rights activists like dr side i bring him are worried the future. over the weekend. to the rule for. the full equality of women. anything that undermines their. him because it is the handlers in the road to progress to. and so why don't we and might be inspiring who generation and she's received awards from around the globe for her fearlessness in tweeting and blogging about the revolution more and more people are asking if it's possible because evolution it was supposed to liberate its people might just land up in slaving at least a part of it policy r.t.

keimer. egypt's about decide who will have the state's top job done but it still lacks a constitution later this hour here on r.t. we hear from an expert about how vats affecting the path to democracy. we were told oh no just say we are going to solve the problem with the presidential election that's not going to happen and look at what is happening now so we have even people saying we have to stop the whole the process because even the fact that we have someone who is representing the all regime they should be how come then be still be here where they were saying that we need to put in the constitution that the people who are from the old regime cannot present themselves for the next ten years but you cannot come with this because it's not in the constitution and constitution is going to be written after the election it's a mess it's not there is no transparency and how can you speak about democracy procedures if there is not transparency in the way it's put.

next to the story of the softer tone russia's top investigators did neither allegations he took an opposition journalist to a forest where he threatened to kill him alexander street can call the accusations put forward by a russian newspaper quote a delirium of inflamed brain. as the tito smarties people all of a show respect story in russia has not paid a scandal brewing between the investigative committee and a top opposition newspaper when the clock back out of this all star. well the the head of navi goes yet said to me to the moon wrote an editorial in which he claims one of his journalists surrogate sokoloff was taken to woods in moscow on the orders of alexander that he can he's the chairman of the investigative committee and whilst in those woods the journalists life was threatened the editorial says that this stems from an opinion piece written by sokoloff in which

he made a series of very serious allegations against buster he can say accusing him of having links with organized crime in russia's south now this resulted in a a heated confrontation between mr he can install koloff which ended with cycle of issuing a formal apology but all that contained in this editorial which has been deemed quite inflammatory here in russia. harsh accusations the no matter how you look at it how did the top investigator react and to them. well but still he can has denied all these allegations out of hand he says that. well if nobody gets yeses editorialist to be believed in these events happened over a week ago why did the newspaper sit on this information and not publish sooner now he accuses the paper of mixing fact with lies in order to create a narrative saying that. there was categorically denying that any journalist was

abducted and facts he went as far as to say is this the article in question was the delirium of an inflamed mind in accusing yes a republican a blatant and shameless article now. i can says that was actually he who invited sokolove along in order. to see how a high profile investigation into organized crime in southern russia was conducted despite some of his aides advising him against it well the the investigative committee is a very very powerful very powerful state agency here in russia and reports directly to the president of the editor. put forward his reasonings for why his newspaper delayed publication. or mostly concerned about the safety of our journalists and we want guarantees for that we might have certain proof but it's not the most important thing we do it coming out with the accusations because we expected

a meeting with mr best strike in and wanted to settle everything peacefully we sent our journalists of abroad until we get guarantees of his safety. is the newspaper which investigative journalist anna politkovskaya wrote for before her murder in two thousand and six and following the publication of this editorial we've seen journalists protesting outside of the headquarters of. the investigative committee they saying that they have firmly on side with the newspaper and its journalist ok thanks brings up today it's a complicated story thanks for bringing with it. the ongoing dispute over the falkland islands between britain argentina will be discussed by you in committee later today in new york it's thirty years to the day since the war over the british territory there ended around nine hundred people died in the one nine hundred eighty two conflict which ended when the argentinean troops are rendered argentina

says the british illegally occupied the falklands which he calls them this almost two hundred years ago our lenders will hold a referendum next year to decide their future political analyst martin mccauley says it's what lies off the island's coast that's fueling the dispute. it if you like. to. the. call them last month venus wish to stay part of britain and don't wish to become a province of argentina if you look at the language which is coming from what is are is the argentinian government is using very very strong language and some people might say threats about security of the falkland islands the falklands. or claimed by spain britain france and even the dutch and the i.g. do claim is very soon one but argentina is concerned about structure it's good so the all in i would fly under the water there the ideas of

discovered blow. you know it is possible that will extend right through to the falklands. british companies or prospecting for the u.s. around the falklands so if they find. then that makes it. strategically and economically very very important and. of course very very wealthy elsewhere around the world this british prime minister david cameron has been testifying in for. six inquiries saying press regulations need to improve cameras come under fire after the phone hacking scandal at rupert murdoch's now defunct news of the world tabloid but officials were accused of helping the media giant avoid investigation cameras also been criticised for the way he handled murdoch's bid to take over pretty sky broadcasting. to ensure a range of large areas of central china is triggered mudslides and forced hundreds from their homes one person is missing and officials have set up shelters to house

those displaced by the flooding villages also work to save one man trapped submitted raging waters they were successful thankfully sure after an hour of rescue efforts emergency repairs are underway with several highways had to be destroyed by landslides and cave ins. right bad weather bad economic news oh dear dimitris here next let's start with spain a downgrade now into near junk status today that is absolutely correct but i have to tell you that on the market i don't see much of a much of a negative reaction release everything is within one percent or drops that we're seeing on the stock market especially in the london and in frankfurt we have seen in the spanish bonds go up above a seven per cent a year olds for ten year bond and that's the danger zone is now below that six point nine four but you know what a lot of optimism is coming from greece actually today because the greek index the a.s.c. is up more than the seven percent was up eight percent at one point with banks

leading the gates eighteen percent gains all across the sectors so really it seems that greece is more or less optimistic about the elections which are crucial of course for the european well the future of the euro zone really and they're due to be held on sunday were to commodities credit suisse bank has forecast the price of bread groups of four to fifty dollars a barrel by the end of the year but that's only if this relation of the eurozone crisis takes the worst scenario and interview to the u.k. is that graph newspaper the banks and the current global imbalances are even worse than at the financial crisis of two thousand i just remind you back then the price of brant fell from over one hundred forty five dollars so below forty dollars per barrel in just half a year a second of what's going on right now doesn't seem like taking credit seriously for granted at least because world prices are pretty much where they were yesterday and that's understandable in one half hours we'll see what comes out of geneva because

a crucial meeting of opec nations due to be held over there where we might see some change to production quotas with whom they should. move over to the russian markets and they are correcting after several sessions of gains they gain. more than they're losing in the previous session let's take a look at what's going on the myself now despite some support we've been seeing from oil prices during the day or energy shares have been mostly down luke was a bit better in the markets up twenty one percent and financials are also losing to be down point nine percent. move over to currency markets and we're seeing the russian ruble pretty much losing the gains that it sought in the previous session down by around half of someone's who was gaining on the cent. on wednesday and the euro is gaining slightly still versus the dollar as on the back of that economic data from the u.s. lost last night. russia says it's ready to provide that stricken cyprus with an

emergency loan of five billion dollars the request five billion euros up to correct myself the request came off the top cypriot banks were downgraded due to their high exposure to the troubled economy last year russia provided a public with two and a half billion euros worth of loans which was equivalent to ten percent of. richard haynesworth from the rating agency risk rating explains why russia is so generous. russia has a very long vested interest to make sure that cyprus continues to function the most russian parts of call their investments in cyprus very many companies have shells in cyprus to handle most of the financing of the russian companies it is very much in russia's interests. that the economy in cyprus remain stable. all right have more of course next hour we'll be talking to experts about what to expect from the opec meets

a lot of news around how did that song go don't worry be happy he said and done though of course if you're live in spain or southern europe whatever thanks for looking forward to that update a bit later now in a couple of minutes we ask a prominent middle east academic whether this still hope for democratic development in egypt that's right after a month of the top stories here on our team from moscow in a minute and a half time.

this is our team from moscow thanks for joining us if you just have we started with some breaking news actually now this hour the egyptian hard court just declared a third of parliamentary seats avoided also allows a mature feek the former premier of the ousted leadership to run for presidency ahead of the runoff this weekend and all that is the country's generals have brought in a law lonely army to arrest civilians a throwback to the country's revolution regime that's our top story also headlining this hour a suicide car bomb explosion in just ten in damascus with syrian officials saying terror tactics are being stepped up to pave the way for foreign military intervention. and the russian opposition journalist claims he was threatened with death by the country's top investigator but the officials dismissed those accusations as the ravings of

a madman. well we're focusing on egypt now continuing with it at the crossroads a big crossroads on its future r.t. talks to a renowned middle east academic the next about how the arab spring saga might pan out. tariq ramadan you're a professor at contemporary slavic studies at the oxford university and also you are a professor at the faculty of the stomach studies in qatar and it's great to have you with us today sir so i think of the situation in north africa and the middle east it's very complex and there are a lot of players involved in it. there's one trend that seems to be undisputed and it's why.