free. free. free. free. food free broadcast video for your media project free media. president barack obama backs the renewal of a ban on assault weapons in the u.s. after the massacre of twenty children of the sandy hook elementary school. the world's top whistleblower joining the sun just to deliver a christmas message outlining his personal aspirations for the year to come as he remains holed up in the ecuadorian embassy in london. and ready for blastoff three members of the next mission to the international space station say their goodbyes to their families before going on a five month trip to the star. on

screen and now in h.d. international news and comment live from moscow this is. president barack obama has made a move toward stronger gun control in the u.s. the proposal comes after the mass shooting at the sandy hook elementary school that took the lives of twenty six people including twenty children he voiced support for and initiative to renew an expired ban on assault weapons and the creation of a new law to tighten gun sales regulations. has the details. when you consider the tragic events that unfolded at an elementary school last week in the us it is not surprising that finally u.s. president barack obama is taking a position that would reinstate a ban on assault weapons in america now the last federal assault weapons ban which expired in two thousand and four prohibited the manufacturing of eighteen specific

models of semiautomatic weapons along with the manufacturing of high capacity ammunition magazines that could carry more than ten rounds now according to white house spokesman jay carney obama would also support legislation that closes a so-called gun show loophole that has allowed some weapons to be sold without criminal background checks but the buyers since obama has been president for mass shootings have taken place but until now critics say that obama has skirted the issue of federal gun control last week's massacre at that elementary school in newtown connecticut claimed the lives of twenty innocent children ages between six and seven and also six staff members were killed in the gun control advocates say it's a shame so many lives have been lost before u.s. leaders finally got the ball rolling on legislation in real largest firearms maker in the u.s. also announced on tuesday that it's being put up for sale by its owner freedom

group international is the maker of the bushmaster rifle the weapons thought to have been used in friday's connecticut massacre shares in publicly traded gun makers have been dropping for a third straight day there's also been reports of a large spike in gun sales in recent days because many believe that the federal government will in fact enforce stricter gun control. and political analyst loves believes that the battle to control public access to guns will not be won easily. there is a strong tribe the show. and believe for a many americans. to post. on the right that they certainly should write the constitution under the second amendment to the if you look rights i do believe that those forces guns and the free will or the private or on their ships or ownership sorie of guns. and perhaps to be much improved. by

decent massacre i was terrible of these because well they are going to argue that the laws of the current laws must be upheld to list you're going to have people who are going to be opposed to the private ownership of guns that they're going to argue about the massacre. and then you're going to locate the amendment of the right to possess up their arms of course they're going to say that law should be strengthened to prevent the mentally unstable to get a hold of. well we would like to know what you think could be done to reduce the number of deadly shootings in the us and you can all go on to our website anti dot com to take part in our latest poll and we can see that on screen there is a tiny between those who think that the media should be forbidden to overhype the massacres and those who believe that the second amendment would prevent any measures to control the guns few of you claim harsh new gun laws and restrictions could help curb the problem and the minority puts faith in the increase of security

in public places go on line to have your say because here for me. he has already announced his intentions to run for parliament in australia but what else is on julian assange just agenda for twenty thirteen while the top whistleblower is set to deliver a christmas message outlining his plans for the year ahead as sarah first reports. it's been six months to the day since julian a son's thought refuge behind the doors of the ecuadorian embassy it was a bid to avoid extradition to sweden where he's wanted for sexual assault allegations that he continues to refuse to travel to sweden because if it will be extradited to the u.s. america investigating the wiki leaks website for publishing documents including dossiers on the wars in iraq and afghanistan now despite having twenty four hour round the clock police protection it's been a busy six months the julian assange we've had him publish

a book we've seen concerns over his health we seem to live in a sound addressing world leaders as well as giving a number of personal exclusive into the city and of course we've had the ongoing protests and vigils in support of both julian assange and the wiki leaks website and in the next couple of days today the sun is expected to give a christmas address normally the territory of monaco but in this case julian assange would be summing up his own going predicament and outlining his plans for the year ahead now what is set to come remains relatively unknown we've seen the dramas unfolding over the last six months so you can be pretty sure it will be predictable it's a little remote a lot of talk at the moment that we could see in twenty thirty julian assange is running for the australian senate and forming his own wiki leaks political party well those will be the next steps and of course r.t. is going to be there every step of the way taking you through this ongoing story.

most cases it's doing everything possible to bring about the release of two russians kidnapped in syria on monday they're being held for ransom by suspected rebels who also seized an attending citizen another hostage a ukrainian gentleness for maine's a militant hands with a deadline passing on a fifteen million dollar price tag for her life meanwhile a news crew working for the u.s. channel have escaped after several days in captivity the hostage crises come as fighting intensifies across the country in the capital damascus rebels and locked in battles with palestinian militias who support the syrian government and some observers blame the violence on foreign meddling terrorist groups rely on kidnappings for financing so does true a park in latin america that it's true the. terrorist groups so that in many other . they are have tension but financing as always they are

terrorists or insurgents the goal of the enemy is that syria's been divided into many pieces so you won't have a syrian anymore you have there is where you have a kurdish. fortune and you don't have other sections and you don't have all these sort of opposition members fighting against each other for the troll i mean you know that the muslim brotherhood paid goons from around the world all want to impose their own totalitarian system on what's left of the of syria. greece prepares for yet another twenty four hour standstill as people protest against great car and a disintegrating economy the details are just ahead here on r.t.e. stay with the.

richest law often enough and knows that to ride a horse you've got to catch it first. for him it's a daily routine that you're soft as a force breeder on the island of a horn at the heart of. his life on an isolated farm is about blue sky green grass and his horse is what sometimes it gets lonely here horses have become part of me now i've fallen off so many times sometimes big bites as well it's part of my everyday life. been home to it the rats locally just laugh for centuries most still live off the land of cattle and fish. my call is often called the pearl of siberia horn is said to be the pearl of by call it's all end of fake forests.

and vast staps. virtually undiscovered by tourists until some twenty years ago i haunt us quickly become a magnet for nature lovers and if you will seekers you're quite some way from civilization here accommodation on the island is very basic so you can forget about a t.v. or even run in water for most people a tent is the on the eruption but for those who come here it's exactly what they're looking for. in journey to buy coal can be unique a trip of a lifetime and the locals say once you've seen it they'll be coming back again and again.

to meet speak to language. programs and documentaries in arabic it's all here on. reporting from the world talks about six of the yard p. interviews intriguing stories for you. in troy. to find out more visit our big. morning news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. a giant corporations are on the day.

hearty live here in moscow the news continues now with medical check ups and final training behind them the new crew of the international space station is ready to head for the stars one russian an american and a canadian will blast off later on wednesday from kazakhstan and here's tom barton with more. there where the guitar music was in the air was the next crew of the international space station who said the last goodbyes to. it will be in the cockpit too says the eye assesses next commander chris hadfield and actually when we're sitting on the launch inside our soyuz there will be music playing both to to warm up our bodies and to warm our hearts while the music will be a comfort there is months of work ahead on the station preparing a launch is like a technical and scientific symphony no rocket crew and an orchestra of engineers

around them cheering up for the main overture. for the families this time is as nerve wracking as it is exciting chris hadfield's wife says she'll still feel connected to him while he's up there again through music but i think really if you're here you're going to be playing so much music because they get it you know that part of it life and then it work right and life you know they were sure that we'll play like the final three we know the surveys that yes there's a spec corner only i assessed for a trustee guitar. but being away from home at the most special time christmas surely that is hard to cope when i'm out in space i start to feel homesick i'll probably do what i do on earth and that is to. to open up my guitar and. and play songs that are important to me we shouldn't feel too sorry for chris thomas as well as enjoying music they'll be able to look down on

earth as we celebrate so it's seasons greetings from our sweet sounding spacemen merry christmas. happy new year to. tom watson r t baikonur. and there will be broadcasting the launch live here on r.t. and also online to don't miss liftoff past. and more about the mission and dot com. also a lot of moments it's revealed that the british spend over one hundred thirty million pounds a year on phone calls to find out how much tax they have to pay. regimes agency standard and poor's as raise the credit rating of greece's sovereign debt this comes just hours before a planned twenty four hour nationwide strike as people continue venting their frustration by a thousand cuts on monday athens received a french tranche of bailout funds from the e.u. and the international monetary fund however as one expert says despite the much

anticipated cash the greek economy is far from salvation. the fact that the ratings agencies gave us a higher rating to be green bombs and yet there's going to be a strike in the case what's happened to that right now the international community b i and that's the e.c.b. m.d.c. have two wars austerity which makes investors happy but of course makes the people angry and soon to see this strike going on the people a lot of people getting very upset in greece while the investor community is relatively happy because you know there is more greater safeguards that their money is going to be returned to them in the form of bonds so i think that you going to continue to see this is exactly where you'll go up and the people are happier but the investor community is less happy and then you're going to have a swerves to the right where you have more austerity making people more angry and more riots and more protests and more strikes and yet investors feeling more secure

in in the bonds that they buy in greece even money this crisis is far from over we never solved the basic problem or mean present the europeans have yet to solve the basic problem that european. countries are insolvent based simply do not have the money to pay back all the money that they have borrowed and because of that fact which is incontrovertibly we are going to come to a day of reckoning of some point the issue becomes when is that day going to happen and how far will the european and europe rats be with the keep the can down the road. an independent panel tasked with investigating september's deadly attack on the u.s. consulate in benghazi has revealed that systematic failures at the state department were behind the security breaches the mission is claimed the lives of the american ambassador to libya and three other u.s. officials it happened as violent demonstrations over an islamic film made in america began sweeping across the arab world and it was believed the attack had

developed out of a similar protest over this report suggests the incident wasn't preceded by any protest to be a terrorist attack is intelligence information claim. french court is due to decide whether dominic stand trial on pimping charges the former international monetary fund chief allegedly took part in true sex parties with prostitutes which the defense denies. the authorities are trying to criminalize last it's the last inquiry against the sixty three year old who's already fought off several sex crimes charges. thousands of miles from the presidential palace in caro opposition continues to protest against the proposed constitution which is backed by the president and the muslim brotherhood the document is being criticized for being overtly islamist which many fear could limit people's social freedoms with the draft will prevail is being decided to stage a referendum which kicked off last saturday preliminary results show most egyptians

are very good in favor of the new constitution but opponents claim the poll was tainted by masked irregularities the country's justice ministry has ordered an investigation into allegations of widespread vote rigging political analyst romana xabi believes the ongoing division over the constitution is only deepening the wide cracks in egyptian society. there is a very strong division within egypt today between egyptians who are more of a group of egyptians that are more towards an islamic system a predominantly islamic religious hardline system in egypt and another group that has also a lot of supporters in egypt that wants to have a democratic or more of a secular. president morsi is saying that he's presenting a democracy that he wants to lead the country and he wants to lead that evolution towards a more democratic system but his actions so far have not proven to be in compliance

with this well it's leading to more tension you had a lot of violence in the past weeks in the streets clashes in the streets the country's economy is not picking up food is getting poorer and poorer the whole system is collapsing the government the public administration the infrastructure of the country is really suffering from the shortages that the violence is spreading to other parts of the country and i think that this shows that mr morsi and his administration do not have the potential to provide the stability that is needed and on the other hand they do not answer the aspiration of the groups of people who took to the streets in the past and who were able to overthrow the previous regime so he's acting in a way that is very similar to the previous regime in fact. israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu has defied international criticism and is pushing through

settlement expansion in the occupied west bank he's looking at the possibility of four and a half thousand homes and two more settlements on top of the controversial fifteen hundred in east jerusalem from which he's already given the initial go ahead netanyahu called jerusalem the eternal capital saying israelis should be united there the palestinians want east jerusalem to be the capital of their future state and threaten to go to the u.n. security council and the bodies for current e.u. members are reportedly preparing a statement condemning israel's plans the push for expansion was announced after the u.n. upgraded the palestinians to a non member observer state a step towards recognizing it statehood political analyst phyllis bennis says the israeli government is using the settlements for its own political gain. they don't need them for security they don't need them for what they like to call natural growth the settlements are a political point that will be condemned perhaps by the security council criticised even by the obama administration but without any serious repercussions for israel

which will largely be allowed to get away with it and as long as the israelis can count on uncritical support from the united states which so far they can there will be mild criticism but there will not be a hint of what real accountability would look like that would mean for example the u.s. saying to israel your settlement policy is illegal all the settlements are illegal and you need to stop them now when israel says no the answer would be ok you're an independent country you can do what you want but you know that thirty billion dollars that we've pledged over these ten years you know the four point one billion dollars in tax money directly to your military that we're giving you just this year alone we're not doing that anymore and you know how we protect you in the united nations so that you're never held accountable we're not going to do that either that would be what real accountability would look like what real pressure would

look like. what about when the news team with more news for in just under forty minutes from now on the. bright long list brings view all the latest financial headlines that's in capital account from washington studios. do we speak your language anything about the law or not advanced. music programs and documentaries in spanish what matters to you breaking news a little turn a tip angle as a kid in the stories. are you here to. enjoy i'll teach spanish find out more visit i to allahabad dot com.

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good afternoon welcome to capital account i'm lauren lyster here in washington d.c. these are headlines for tuesday december eighteenth two thousand and twelve japanese pension funds are starting to invest in gold for the first time according to the wall street journal they're looking to mitigate the damage of market shocks and reduce the risks associated with currencies the paper says until recently they've invested in mostly domestic stocks and bonds will have more on metals with

the gold antitrust action committees bill murphy and chris powell here in studio plus the as the sea has approved a j.p. morgan copper exchange traded fund reportedly the first one is about fight this it will copper and receive the go ahead despite opposition from companies that actually use copper and some lawmakers who opposed it too now the concerns are that it could allow speculators says the market increase prices volatility and undermine price transparency for and dusty all metal will discuss the impact and the newtown school shooting has unleashed tears tragedy and of course through talk of gun control and gun laws from the weapon use the bushmaster rifle to big business we'll talk about the reaction from wal-mart to wall street let's get to today's capital account.

the price mechanism is something we often talk about on this show and the role central banks around the world play in distorting it whether through central bank there are or q e or through private banks manipulating live or without question markets are manipulated and prices distorted our next guest has been making the case for years that the precious metals markets are no exception you know it's a tough one though because there isn't a smoking gun per se of libel or with gold though we may see the queen of england touring the bank of england vaults as we did just recently and you see there what we don't get to see is transparent disclosure of the gold transactions of central banks in terms of their lease things swapping that sort of thing now that we may

know of this the f.t.c. these investigations into silver market manipulation been ongoing for years still with no results but here to discuss some of the latest developments in precious metals in light of what we do know are bill murphy and chris powell of the gold antitrust action committee better known as gap time and they are together at this same desk in our studio which is just so exciting thanks so much for being here gentlemen good to be here long great to have you so let's start with today gold and silver moving down not a lot of big news anything to see here. yeah actually it's been part of an an ambush attack by what we call the gold cartel for the past month they've been trading and when asian markets are thinly traded just about three weeks ago they had to call next twenty five dollars an ounce in one minute twenty four out of the last twenty six days on the wood access market comix pretty open they've taken the market down they slammed and today with the euro making seven month highs all of

a sudden gold collapsed twenty five thirty dollars for no reason whatsoever the stock market was fun other commodity markets were fine it is ludicrous what they're doing what they're doing meaning what i mean based on they are animal spirits behind markets are hard to discern so how do we know what's going on when day or another when it comes to gold and silver well if i might say markets just don't trade like this for no reason four times within a month it's the consistency of what they're doing and that is so egregious it's blatant no one else can really explain why gold is going through these sudden waterfall drops and it's them and it's a reason for it i think it's because this physical cliff nonsense is going to end pretty soon and when the dust clears nothing's going to be really done about our growing deficit our debts and so on so i want to take gold off the radar screen as much as possible as we go to barometer of u.s. financial market health and in your view clarify for our viewers who aren't familiar with gatto what you mean when you say gold cartel.