all out ahead right here and i think. it's perched atop a judge and the view from the kremlin stretches as far as the eye can see up for a city to all of siberia for centuries. it lost its economic importance even before it was bypassed by the chance i bear in railway but the ball's cremains a spiritual center. things like these are a yearly occurrence thousands of orthodox worshippers of them selves and blessid water to commemorate the baptismal jesus. there when you pull up on board them it doesn't matter if it's minus thirty it's

a siberian tradition i do it myself every year for everyone to overcome their worst fears it is desirable to take the plunge. but that's a picture postcard church is the story of a city built by opportunist explorers political exiles and crafty fur traders. in the fifteen eighties the russians had only just conquered siberia taking it from the muslim. surrounded by enemies to balls to be their stronghold constructed on top of the city but soon enough it became an economic hub siberian fire was the oil of its time bringing in a third of all russia's state revenue but the location have of the says for the russians the. tabasco is one of the most popular places to send political dissent is not any people were exiled that once a giant bell that was used to incite riots was supposed to set a three hundred ten. the russian heiress across who led

a revolt against the eight hundred twenty five known as the decembrists worse than hair and drove. there they created a replica high society adopting the latest fashions as soon as they came out or at least once they made it from paris to siberia. but the city also serves up some bitter irony for the russian royal family after the bolshevik revolution this is the office where the tsar nicholas the second spend most of the last year of his life his whole family had been exiled here and they were at a fairly comfortable existence this was a big house but they weren't allowed to see visitors or go outside themselves leading the ordinary normal countryside lifestyle they even had thoughts of escape but within the year bizarre and his family would be dead.

never again its political significance but the streets will always echo with a glorious past that will likely provide the livelihood for some habitants in the future. party life here in moscow the news continues now greece is being brought to a standstill by general strikes on the second day of what's been called devil's week it's a week of public action in protest a new study package about to be voted on by parliament all these people over is in the center of athens. well the forty eight hour general strike is well and truly underway here in greece and we've seen south ins of people coming out onto the streets of athens to voice their anger against the latest round of austerity measures that's being put forward by prime ministers so maurice now that will be

voted on in parliament on whedon's day it's around serious team point five billion euros worth of savings those savings taking the form of of budget cuts also of tax rises also we expect to see the the age of retirement rice and pensions cuts all of these things angering the people of greece and seeing them out on the streets to demonstrate against it now it's more than likely that that latest round of austerity measures will be passed one of the reasons why it will be passed is because if greece doesn't pass it then they're not going to get the next round of bailout money that they need so very much now that's just over thirty one billion euros worth of bailout money and they've been told by the three main creditors that they have to slash more from the deficit they have to make more savings and this is why they've they've put forward this pared this nativist package for thirteen point five billion euros worth of savings and it's not expected to be an easy thing no as

they say it should pass but it should be a very tight vote in the parliament and all that leaves people wondering is well even if this does pass will there be enough politicians on site in order to implement these latest savings. well for more on the tough week ahead for greece let's join to put it your disappearance sees a sociology at the university of the achaean where the prime minister some hours he's promised that this will be the final set of cuts is it a promise he can really keep do you think well it shows that before every a sturdy pockets in the past two and a half years were supposed to be the last one so no it's won't be the last austerity package we are going to see more of it and look there's been happening today and tomorrow in parliament is something very close to a parliamentary could that. you know the rapid way it would just one day to days of discussion you're going to pass a huge will that does not only include budget cuts all changes in the pension

system and that wage system for a large segments of the public sector it would also suspect aspects. of taxation so this is it's not you know where we want it we're very far from you know democratic procedure this is a set of measures that have been actually dictated by the troika a list just going to be passed through parliament without me and i accept stassen sure let's talk about the parliament there in greece what about the political consequences here i mean clearly this package is highlighting serious divisions in the ruling coalition when this vote is voted through and it's probably likely to go through isn't it what would happen then to the coalition would it be torn apart or would actually stick together while the government coalition is in it in one state of crisis. trying to perform other difficult balancing act. democratically asked the third party in the listen will not move further measures

it will no doubt. the budget on sunday that there's going to be probably a government recess in the next days and they will try and sort of keep the government. that's with them. with this sits and bad limits i mean they're going to be left with your sits in a way that since a number of the. members of parliament is going to actually vote in some other measures will be just a very seen majority probably something between one hundred sixty two it one hundred sixty four three hundred. just how much longer can this country sustain the crisis as we're talking we're showing pictures of protesters in the streets we know the strikes are going to continue for a week won't bring the country to a standstill really deal further blows to this already weakened economy it can't do any good can it while i think that this strikes are the only way to actually

test this. devastation that rests facing because. society is in a state of like two a social crisis. facing something very close to a humanitarian crisis there that led to the levels have risen unemployment levels have risen. and there are there limits you know way soul and and ahead of us with such honesty the pack of lies only even more stare at the. circle austerity and this isn't. just a terrorist thank you very much indeed for joining us live from athens this is r.t. can be live from the russian capital and while americans a busy queuing up to choose which president they want to run the biggest economy in the world economists themselves are already making estimates on the financial cost of the presidential campaigns and katie is here to talk about the business update katie hello i know i will we're now looking at a figure two

a billion dollars in money it's just absolutely incredible it really really is i'm going to have all the details in the business but it said they'll save me so it's to me that. welcome to the business bulletin so the financial cost of the u.s. presidential election campaign looks set to top two billion dollars so with more details i'm joined now by arena. in these times of economic hardship how come these valse amounts of money be justified and is it really all necessary well i don't think i'll be risking my journalistic integrity if i say that no really cannot be justified but the same time we're talking about five point eight billion dollars it's kind of a drop in the ocean if you compare it to the deficit that the country has and that

is one point three trillion really so maybe it's not that much and yet we have to understand that these are huge companies which are donating their money to the candidate of their choice or not necessarily donating will get to that in just a little bit basically they are financing the election campaign and of course we're talking about tons of money being spent on the advertisement running on t.v. we're talking about the banners that you see on the streets we're also talking about you can look at the comparison look at this you have almost fifty million spent in the u.k. you had slightly more in canada it was three hundred million spent on their elections and then hello united states compare this to the elections of last year we actually the united states are actually beating their own record which was four years ago and if you compare that to the elections which happened twelve years ago they're actually running almost twice as much this year as they did just twelve years ago of course there's been

a ton of money spent on negative advertisements as well and you also have to keep in mind that as of lately in kind of the last stage of the electoral campaign a lot of it was on the flyers which were just. two people millions upon millions of those flyers are definitely not talking about saving the trees here and definitely not talking about saving the money if you consider the fact that sending just one letter in the united states costs around forty six cents multiply that by millions you kind of get the picture yes i'm here right now where exactly is this money coming from that's the question exactly where are you getting to that point right now of course a lot of it is coming from the donations or all of it is coming mostly most of it is coming from donations obviously for example mitt romney is a rich man he can afford to give some of his own money towards his campaign obama however isn't so a lot of them are relying on the on the donors but we have to mention here the so-called dark money

a lot of this money is coming from organizations or political action group political action committees which don't have to disclose themselves when they make a contribution to a certain campaign and according to the latest data around just over one hundred seventy million dollars came from the from the so-called dark money in this particular campaign we don't really know who donated and how much money to whichever candidate which is kind of interesting idea that you have this election happening in the united states and yet you have no idea who is actually for the candidates. we don't know who these people are but do we know what they're going to expect and i think it's safe to assume that they're going to be expecting some sorts of goods and services obviously whichever candidate wins will have to appease that those who have donated exuberant amounts of money to their campaign so really it does not look like it's the american people who are going to be benefiting from the winner of the elections but it's more or less those who have given these

exorbitant sums of money to whichever candidate becomes the president which is an interesting thing to remember when you're voting absolutely so i wonder in this case then. who is going to be spending the most money is it a case of who has the deepest pockets all who has a nice friends i think is the case of who has the most friends with the deepest pockets really of course traditionally the conservatives the republicans are getting better financing because they are really popular among the big business the business elite are going to be supporting the. republican candidate but of course if you're looking at somebody like a like obama he has a lot of fans in hollywood he has a lot of friends in hollywood and obviously the minorities in the more liberal minded organizations will also be supporting him but the end of course we still have to wait and see who is going to be a winner in this rather close elections we do know that they're kind of going. head to head at this point arena thank you so much indeed for information thank you is

that if you worked in situation i would that it more let's check out the u.s. markets and see what is happening because they are indeed as you can see trading rall the world today as bit of optimism in riyadh are investors though all reluctant to make any major moves ahead of the election and of course we've got the overriding fiscal cliff as well that remains at the forefront of investors' minds we'll have more of that latest check out europe and see what's going on there because the markets are getting sort of time four days is a very much a wait and see attitude right now but you can see go some healthy gains just we've also got the situation in greece as well tomorrow is a crucial great vote on the of the next tranche of aid as well to avoid bankruptcy we're going to be even taps on that let's check out the euro with see what the change rates are up to and we can see the euro is indeed gaining just that it's gaining a fraction although german is

a must bank expects the pair to remain poor and to greece is saved by the other countries or if it's a there should try to check out ross so that we can see we've got some modest gains that softer the read a long holiday the trading volumes once again. as i say sound like a broken record here but investors are awaiting results of the u.s. election on the corporate side gas from says ended to negative the gas well they have provided back dated discounts to us. and we've got news after a short break here on our stay with us about. wealthy british style. is not on. the. markets why not

come to find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike's conjure for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into cars a report on our. do we speak your language anything about the will or not a day of. school news programs and documentaries in spanish more matters to you breaking news a little tonnage of angola's kidneys stories. you hear. detroit altie spanish find out more visit i to all tito it's calm. to me soon which brightened if you knew me about song from funniest impressions.

moves from stunts on t.v. dot com. you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realized everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture. if. he is evil he is he he he. he. not you.

if you live here in moscow president vladimir putin has sacked russia's defense minister a corruption scandal criminal investigation has been known to allegations of embezzlement surrounding the ministry which could end up costing around one hundred million dollars sean thomas joins me now in the studio to tell us more so what's this scandal all about sean and why was the minister involved well bill we seem to have everything we have embezzle meant scandal corruption at the ministry level and possibly even a love affair mixed in with all of this this change comes from a scandal basically with the defense ministry selling off assets at an undervalued rate to companies that are affiliated with that defense ministry and that corruption costing the russian federal government about one hundred million u.s. dollars in terms of damage to that budget so this changes basically to take the surgical

of who is the defense minister remove him from the ministry replace him with sergei shy do so that he basically is not part of the investigation because he's a little bit too close in fact two arrests have been made there's one person of interest who's fled the country she's reportedly possibly a mistress of therefore being too close so all of this wrapped up in today's decision right tell us more about yourself and also tell us a bit about his successor he's taking over here certainly it will anatoly sort of the first civilian to ever hold the position of defense minister here in russia he was actually charged with bringing needed reforms to the russian military machine and he successfully did so in fact he has been praised for doing so but of course he has to have been forced to resign amid this scandal and then we have. who is the former emergencies minister very popular held that position for eighteen years and then recently. most recently has been the governor of the moscow region and he's been very popular in fact of lot of. putting his confidence behind you saying that

he might just be the right man to be able to clean up this mess that the defense ministry now this is corruption at the highest levels of the russian government so why is this being targeted what is this perhaps a sign that corruption which of course has been a major problem in this country for many years is now being addressed well that is certainly one of the stated goals of the loading we're putting administration in his predecessor dmitry medvedev as well and so on the surface it looks like this might be the case but if you look there's not very many faces of united russia out there in fact. who is one of the well known faces in him moving from this position leaves a vacancy for almost a full year to come in the in the region of who is going to be the governor so it looks like on the surface tackling corruption but how many people are out there to actually be a part of this wave to push to attack but interesting is being very well publicized well covered in the media certainly certainly that is the case i mean if you listen

to all of the russian radio stations all of the russian television stations everybody is covering this with great interest and everybody is behind tried to because he's a face that they all know and they trust and so hopefully he'll be the one to push forward so it was thanks very much indeed. israel has announced plans to build over a thousand new homes in the occupied west bank the international community has condemned settlement policy saying they violate international law but the jewish state feel safe under the u.s. and britain which will remain whoever becomes the next president has a view of jeff help of the head of the israeli committee against health demolitions . it's true the international media opposes israeli policies but it won't be anything the sanction is for israel knows and it knows it whether obama is elected or romney selected its trump card is the american congress support that israel has from both political parties and it doesn't care anymore it'll do this in the light of day israel has the limited the solution as it's called it's completely

imprisoning the palestinians and no one in the world is going to speak up against it so it doesn't matter really if it's opportunistic or not the point is that israel wins billions of dollars are at stake for the british prime minister in a low key arms sales towards the gulf states david cameron's aim to sell around one hundred typhoon fighter jets to clients with controversial records on human rights research about to be paced believes the potential deals are against british law well certainly the revelation i don't hammer countries was normal form is only taken one camera man with him certainly does raise questions and certainly david cameron should be embarrassed about the sanctities in the middle east right now what we're seeing is that the interests of international arms companies appear to be trumping british laws and british values when it comes to upholding human rights . even cameron has publicly aligned himself with the arab spring movements he's

going to great happens as we can see to sell arms to the very same oppressive regimes that the arab spring was opposed to fundamentally promoting arms sales to these countries undermines what regulations the u.k. does have on controlling arms exports these deals have been in extra could be linked to corruption in the past indeed yeah i'm an arms dealer to saudi arabia one of the countries in question is arguably the most corrupt transaction history of mankind. more news of us waiting for you on our website to our dot com including a warning sign in london. plus a close call for iran as an israeli documentary avails how television was all set to strike terror on back in two thousand and ten learn more about that at r.t. dot com. and hundreds of members of the movement anonymous bare their teeth at the u.k. government marking guy fawkes night with protests in the capital. the

group of people who posted bail for june in a surge of handed over thousands of pounds to authorities in britain their money was forfeit after the world's most famous whistleblower violated the conditions of his release by seeking refuge in the ecuadorian embassy in london that we can he said it was trying to avoid extradition to sweden last money however say they continue to support. thousand pounds which is the share of the dive last it was twenty and we managed to get it reduced but you know that is a significant sum but i don't personally hold julian assange responsible for that i think he's entitled to. entitled to claim political asylum i don't know if julian assange would face the death penalty in america however i have to give julian assange as the benefit of the doubt on these things because i think there's we can't be sure that he wouldn't if you look at the treatment of bradley manning who is was apparently the source the whistleblower alleged to be his or his treatment

was described by the u.n. . as actually having you know being tortured so i think it's reasonable for us to believe that if it were to go to the united states that he would face torture. we'll be back with more today's news in just a few minutes from now this is r.t. life in moscow. trimmings in this tree even for specialists a voice can produce several sounds it warms the to do the means the art of throat singing comes naturally picked up like a language. a

language of communicating with nature it said that's where throat singing originates from the unions believe not only animals but also all surrounding objects like reverse forests and different stones souls imitating the sounds they believe assumes to capture the power of nature. was. there are special instruments that accompany the singing give gainey says there is even a legend about his instrument a gill it says once there lived a poor shefford who had the best horse that won every competition but jealous people killed it on the course was revived as an instrument that those that have suffered a fall is because of the spirit of the horse came to his dream and said make an instrument from a tree the sounding board from the leather of my face the strings. and to remember

me make an engraving of my head part of the instrument he did so i called the instrument again which means come back and this melody only instrument is called. to fly as one of the most famous groups in the republic there. next goal is to tour broad they say for you are peons it's difficult to pick up and sing so i ask them to teach me and see if i can do it early i'm cheering it up and they were. sharing oh you. did that was sure to say get. to them was you get a r o. but now it is only a movie part of the song and not the actual throughout singing which i wouldn't

even try to repeat. so maybe you have to be born here to be able to sing like this puzzled so until i met mall she looks like a deveny and i don't even speak their language but she is from japan. most as to foreign minds that you come from two hundred years ago until sappy here she's not planning a professional singing career she keeps practicing just because it's become part of her nature. and she would be soon.